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Just wanted to say I started my first Carrara experience on a new thread...
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/52059/
Below I present my work completely modelled in Hexagon. It took few hours to model all items in the scene with no crash at all. I just keep to operations descriptions in the Hex manual. I found that the crashes occur when I make a mistake in the order of operations within a procedure. So stick to the manual and probably you will avoid most of the crashes. On the other hand I use Carrara's modellers too but I try to avoid useing spline modeller and booleans since it is much faster to make a good topology simply by vertex modelling than cleaning the mesh for hours.
Greetings
Marek
Very nicely done, makma :) You should pop into the Hex forum - lots of newbies there could use your you expertise.
Regarding the myth of Hex being unstable - that discussion comes up at least every six months. The consensus is that it is only unstable when you first start learning. It get more and more stable as you gain expertise. The jury is out on whether this is because the user adjusts to Hex, or whether Hex adjusts to the user :)
Yeah, I don't recall it being particularly unstable. Maybe long ago there was a version that had some problems...perhaps before this final update years ago. I do recall having some stability issues way back then, and a lot of complaints, and DAZ finally fixed some issues. But since then it seems fine.
Makma, I'm curious...did you render that with Carrara? The surfaces seem a little too good for a Carrara render, especially the glass and the reflections on the table. And the SSS in the candle wax. I recall having a challenge trying to get a good candle wax.
I agree with RoyGee, Beautiful Work!
I was curious along with JoeMama2000 what program you rendered that scene in.
I am a lover of Hexagon, But regardless of order of operations within a procedure, to crash because you hit a wrong button, or forget to 'apply' here or click 'validate' there is a result of not enough beta testing and leads to an unstable program. I have watched too many tutorials where professionals have made a mistake in live demonstrations. I agree when you start becoming proficient in Hexagon, the crashes do become a minimum though. My last crash seemed to happen when I was subdividing back and forth a large object and using soft selection tool.
Outstanding job! and a very beautiful piece of Art!
Oh yeah, I forgot !! The "Apply" thing...that's right. If you don't get in the habit of always doing an "Apply" you can have problems.
Beautiful work, makma!
Hex crashing was not a myth or theoretical to my experience. I am far from an experienced modeler, but Hex would crash when first started up, or when I first would select a primitive, and nothing else. I doubt there could be much user error causing the crash when there wasn't any real user action taking place :)
I tried for 6 hours straight to follow a simple step by step tutorial to model a very simple window in Hex. I would only click exactly where the person who gave the video tutorial would click, doing only exactly step by step what he said to do. Crash. Freeze. Crash. Non-responsive. Crash.
It was the most horribly frustrating experience I have ever had in my entire time of using digital apps. I was left nearly in tears of frustration, and I decided life was too short for this. Apparently Hex hates me with the raging hot fury of a 1000 suns.
I take it on faith that Hex has a couple more useful tools that I don't have in Carrara (though I've also heard the reverse is true) and I know lots of people love it to pieces, but I've sworn off on Hex. In fact I was so traumatized it took me years to have the courage to even open the modeling room in Carrara and start exploring. What little modeling I've learned to do was all in Carrara, and never had one single crash while modeling, never had a tool that didn't behave as it was supposed to (although I admit *many* times I didn't know how to use the tool properly), never had much frustration with it. I'm not a natural modeler, certainly got no special gift or talent for it and I seriously respect those who do, but for me I'll stick with Carrara for modeling, suits my needs pretty well and has the benefit of not driving me insane with frustration :)
Jonstark...I assume you have the latest version?
If you're not too traumatized, maybe try an uninstall and re-install. Seems strange that you're having such problems with the latest (1.79 I think?)
Well, I have been trying to slowly add Carrara and Blender to my tools at the moment. I will always use Hexagon until I find that it can no longer provide a service for me, and I am glad I didn't have as big of a problem as you did Jonstark! Right Now, I use Hexagon, for modeling, Carrara for its replicators, landscapes, and maybe hair, If I can get the time to continue Jonstarks' tutorials, and Sculptris of sculpting. I am trying to learn the sculpting in Blender because it has more features than Sculptris.
My version is 2.5.1.79
I did think I had the latest version, but maybe not. I'll try an uninstall/reinstall just to make sure, that's good advice.
The only real issue with Hex is that it has no error catching - do something it wasn't designed for, and down it goes without warning.
Then again, Carrara is also known for unexplained "An error has occurred"
Crashing on startup or randomly on simple tasks is probably an OGL conflict. You also need to have your GPU not set to maximise. Making it LAA for 64 bit machines is a big help. Then there are some settings within Hex that will optimize it to your machine - just like Carrara or any other app.
Crashing when selecting a mesh points to either a twisted (non-planar) n-gon, or bad non-manifold edges, or a combination.
It is not simply that Hex has some tools which Carrara doesn't or vice-versa - these are pretty much standard. It is the way they are used, plus a lot of functions that make Hex my preferred modeler. Some years ago I compiled a list of about 50 features/work methods which, in my personal opinion, made Hex superior for Daz_Spooky.
Hex is what it is - a very efficient, simple to use modeler, but dated because of neglect. In its time it was the premier modeler It is spoken of with nostalgia in CGTalk.
Comparing the two, again in my personal view, is like comparing a Ford Fietsa to a Ferrari, they both start with F and will get you from A to B and that is about where the comparison ends:)
You can choose to drive the Ferrari, with all the attendant dangers, or plod along in a trusty Fiesta - I prefer the Ferrari:)
This is an very good video giving a brief overview of sculpting in Daz3D Hexagon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC7kKWR6Nws
He switches between Hexagon and Z Brush showing the similarities and differences. At one point, @ 6:32,polygons, The narrator states that Hexagon cannot handle ultra high polygons.Once he bumps the subdivision up to level 4, Hexagon crashes.
If Hexagon would get a complete rebuild:
* 64bit
* 'Pixol' like technology to handle ultra high polygon counts when sculpting
* Layers with available sliders to see the actual effect of a morph / store multiple variations of a model within itself.
* Pen tablet support.
* Keep the simple UI. / allow toolbars to dock to each other so that they can be dragged to the second screen at once.
It should be kept strictly as a modeler/sculptor app. I think it would then be the perfect companion to Carrara, as stated in the old advertisement, and even more so to Daz Studio.
http://www.daz3d.com/products/hexagon/hexagon-what-is-hexagon/
(As it states on the last line)
I stand by this statement. Although I started with Carrara's vertex modeler, I've regularly heard on this forum how powerful Hexagon would feel after a few hours of playing with it. Headwax, Garstor, and Roygee, all people who have earned my respect and admiration, would say how something couldn't be done seriously in Carrara (with seriously undefined) and then maybe retreat to it couldn't be done without a great deal of hassle. So, I put the time in to watch Hex tutorials, go through Hex handbook examples (actually buried in a Carrara handbook ;> ), and practice modeling with Hex. I'm sorry, but I really do think the largest difference in efficiency is familiarity with Hex. I do not find myself exiting Carrara and opening Hex to model a super stylish SciFi building for my Jetsons set or frustrated that I can't get an edge where I want for an organic figure. My super SciFi building can usually be done in the same number of steps, and yes I can get an edge where I want it in Carrara.
No, I am not an advocate for Carrara's vertex modeler. Use what works for you. But my foray into Hex has been a personal disappointment to say the least. I am now trying to learn Blender.
That is just my experience. It does not seem to be general.
+1
was hoping carrara would be all-in-one-solution. modeling, uvmapping, rendering animations.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
Jack of all trades, master of none.
starting to feel a lil defeated, but ... fun to play with anyway. :)
Sorry, I'm late. Thank you for appreciation of my work.
Few questions to answer.
Joe/Misty: No, it was not rendered in Carrara, sorry. I rendered it with Thea Studio biased engine for 9 hours at 2000 x1600 px to get all of the refraction, caustics, reflections and soft reflection on marble table top without any noise. I made few variation on lighting with IBL, spotlight and mesh emitters. I found that using spotlight only with emitting flames meshes resulted in the most clear output. It is important to write that I used Intel2Quad CPU, GTX660 (rendered both CPU and GPU together) WIN7 64bit. With updated machine I could cut the render time considerably. I'm tempted to put Carrara on test with the scene but my C8.1 is much slower than C8.5. Unfortunately I cannot find a good reason to upgrade it when modelling in Hex and rendering in Thea. Perhaps C9 would be more desirable.
Joe: I will try to render the candles in Carrara the way I did it in Thea to find what's up.
Roygee: I agree with you that what we need from Hex is a kind of warning windows when going wrong way. It should stop me for a while and give me another try. That's the way other apps work. Yes, Hex is just a good tool that was unfortunately abandoned some time ago. But it works fine for me. It is very easy to learn comparing to other modellers I have tried to learn. I have no problem with outdated UI. For me it's OK. I read the manual many times to understand the way Hex works. I found that peoples try to learn and use this kind of application only in intuitive way. IMHO 3D modelling is not intuitive, it demands of some knowledge both on the app itself and the rules of topology building too. Trying modelling in new application in intuitive way is asking for troubles, I think. I saw the tutorials and they gave me good insight into Hex modelling features. It helped me a lot. I studied Bertrand Benoit models wire-renders on Turbosquid shop to learn topology. It was a great lesson indeed. Perhaps it helped me to make things the right way so I can avoid crashing now.
GarrettDr: Yes, "apply " command is a part of the procedure so it is important to get some habit to use it. And saving the work from time to time... I think that it is a good way to learn different apps. I found that having some experience in Thea helped me a lot with Carrara render! So I think that the most important thing is to set up ones mind to get the idea of the app logic and the rules of modelling, UV making and rendering. It took me two years to get a basic idea about all of that. I spent days on reading everything I got on modelling, lighting and rendering. Seems there is no easy way round. It would be fine if Hex could get the upgrade you listed above but it seems there is nobody interested in.
Jonstark/diomede: I am sorry that some of you had so many problems with Hex but I never got such trouble with it. Have no idea about that. My Hex is 2.5.1.79.
diomede: There are many 3D "Swiss army knifes" so it is not a matter of to many features of Carrara but rather a very slow development it's got last time to say so.
Thanks again for your attention to my works.
Greetings,
Marek
Yeah, the list of reasons I dislike the Carrara modeller is very long.
I mean, just look at the UV mapping. You go into the UV Editor, and up pops the Model tab, where you can choose the "Mapping" from a drop down menu. The choices are Custom, Box Face, Cylindrical, and Spherical.
Now select the Operations tab. That's where you can select the "Projection" from a dropdown menu. And the choices are Box, Cylindrical, Spherical, and Planar.
HUH?????
Now, I'm sure there is a rational, or at least reasonable explanation why this seeming duplication and inconsistency exists. But no matter what, it is irrational and confusing. One allows you to select Planar, the other doesn't. "Projection" has an "Apply" button, but "Mapping" doesn't.
And often the resulting maps you get after doing your Mapping/Projection are just ridiculous. For example, here's the map you get when unwrapping a simple cylinder. Are you serious?? Then you have to go in and try to select each section and move it around to make it reasonable. But selecting each section is a huge pain. And to move or rotate a selected section requires that you click directly on top of a vertex, or else nothing happens, and your painstaking selection goes away and you have to start all over. And if you can move it you have to figure how to separate each of the sections from one another so only the section you want moves. Oh wait, this is Carrara...I don't think you CAN separate sections...
It's just wrong. Yeah, I'm sure you can come up with ways to do it, but for me at least, it's just designed very very poorly. Which isn't to say that other UV mappers are perfect. But some are VASTLY better than this.
By the way, here's the exact same thing in Hex. Now I'm not saying Hex is perfect, just a lot more rational and user friendly.
In Hex the sections are laid out reasonably and aligned to the texture in UV space. And you select one section and BAM !!! Up pops a universal manipulator, the sections are separated, and you can move and rotate your sections with the greatest of ease.
Come on DAZ, this is just super basic ease of use stuff.
By the way, I pretty much gave up on the Carrara modeller long ago for all but the most basic stuff. So maybe I'm out of the loop, but IS there any way to separate the various UV sections so you can move and rotate them individually?
And geez, just adding a new vertex object in Carrara. You add a vertex cube, and you get a cube with "Object Definition" of 8, whatever that means. And if you want to change it you have ONE chance to get it right. Enter a new Object Definition value in the dialog box, hit Enter, and that's it.
Now with Hex, for example, you get a simple cube with six sides, which is what you usually want if you're starting to model using simple box modelling. And if you want to change that, there's a little Tesselations control with UP/DOWN arrows that you can adjust all day until you get what you want.
Again, talk about user friendly and rational design ?? Come on, Carrara is way behind when it comes to user friendly. At least for this user... :) :)
Yes, here is a Carrara uvmap for a cylinder that I threw together for the thread on uvmapping. I think you will appreciate this point, Joe. Because I am more familiar with how Carrara does things, I usually have a plan before modeling about how I plan for how various steps will fit together. Therefore, the Carrara modeler of the cylinder does not take me longer than using Hex.
However, and I strongly agree with you and Roygee and everyone else that Hex is better under more circumstances. Its just that most of the stuff in the world is made up of simple shapes, so if you have a plan, as you stress, then the tools at hand can be more than adequate.
But I conceptually struggle with the pinning/unwrapping process, and expect to get better in each program as I get the concept better. Which again, I think is in line with the larger point you often try to make.
diomede, I'm not quite sure what your point is :) :)
Of course, you should have a plan prior to any modelling task. But how does that affect the user-friendliness and rational layout of the tool?
I'm also curious how you did that unwrap of a cylinder, and how you separated the sections... :)
Mine was done like any UV map...select seams and unwrap. Pretty straightforward. Maybe I'm missing a special Carrara procedure. :) :)
@Makma. You make many great points. Regarding my comment that Carrara is a jack of all trades master of none, I was not saying that no program could be a master at many things, only that Carrara has to my knowledge never been the master of one of the core functions. Hex is a superior vertex modeler (yes, I say that!), Bryce is a superior landscape builder,... In my opinion, if someone is already proficient in various specialty programs, it is likely that Carrara will be inferior at each individual function.
Unlike Hex or Bryce or Studio, and I do value this difference, a person can model, rig, texture, animate, and render all in Carrara for a modest price. I like that. :-)
The seams for the cylinder are along the top and bottom circles and one vertical line. Pretty simple. Yes, seams generally detach sections and allow them to be moved around independently, which I did for the cylinder. If for some reason Carrara has a hiccup and things are not separated, there is always the detach function under operations, although I did not use it in this example.
yeah, that's what I did...I think my biggest problem is in the selecting of individual sections. With Carrara they seem to overlap or butt up against each other, making selecting each section very difficult. But you're right, I checked and they are separated. Just selecting each section is often a challenge.
Like anything, yeah you can do it, it's just a matter of how quickly and efficiently you can do it. In Carrara's case, with me at least, it really is annoying.. :)
Oh, and how can I forget scaling the uv sections in Carrara?? Holy cow, you want to resize a section, usually to fit inside the UV space, and you have to click exactly on a vertex or else your selection goes away. And then with the TINIEST mouse movement the mesh scales times 10,000 or something, WAY outside the UV space.
Geez, why not do it intelligently, with manipulators, and some sensible scaling factors ?? It's horrendous, IMO
EDIT: BTW, I apologize for ranting against Carrara. I know some folks don't like negative stuff like this and take it a little bit personally, so I apologize for attacking your baby :) :)
It's just very frustrating sometimes, with something that should be so simple.
No offense taken by me, Joe. I'm not even proficient enough in understanding UVmapping to follow what you are guys are talking about :)
I will try uninstalling and re installing Hex, maybe it was something to do with the version I had, though I'm fairly certain I had the latest, but to be honest I'm not sure I'll ever use it much, as even if I weren't traumatized by my prior experience I really have no proficiency in Hex, whereas I have a working understanding of the basics in Carrara, and it's been working splendidly and quickly for what I need. I am not an advanced enough as a modeler to have bumped up against any limitations yet, I suppose.