Installing purchased content for Carrara 8.5
fictionalbookshelf
Posts: 837
I've had Carrara 8.5 for about a month now. I have tinkered in it some and finally decided to take a leap and purchase content for it today since most things are 1/2 off.
So my question is where should I install the new content so it will show up in Carrara?
I'm only asking because I'm use to Daz and Poser but not Carrara. I don't want to screw things up
Post edited by fictionalbookshelf on
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http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/carrara/8_5/userguide/getting_started/tutorials/setup_guide/start
If you could maybe tell us what some of the products are, that may help a bit.
Also, what computer platform do you use? Mac or Windows?
I have a Windows 8.1 64Bit machine. The items I bought were a few Howie's scene bundles.
I'm on a Mac, so I am not sure where the files reside in the Carrara directory, but you will for sure need to make sure that if he has a data folder, then those contents will need to go into Carrara's data folder. They are most likely custom leaves for Carrara's plants.
If you're installing with DIM, it'll go into the Scenes folder (can't tell you exactly where that is in Windows, cos I'm also on a Mac). Sometimes they install to Presets/Scenes, which doesn't really work on a Mac without some messing around, so I usually wind up moving them. The products installed that way show up in Carrara's Open->Presets menu.
In truth, you can install them anywhere and simply open the .car file. Carrara is very self contained in that respect - there's no need for complicated runtimes or library structures. The only parts that actually _need_ to be in a particular place are the leaves for the Carrara trees. They go into Data/Plants.
I first used DIM to install the products and it put things in the scene folder and various other places. Half of which wouldn't show in Carrara. So uninstalled the items, created a folder for Carrara products only and directed DIM to install there but for some uknown reason it installed the products to the programs files/daz/carrara folder. When it installed in that location part of the items showed up and some didn't, once I opened Carrara.
I completely uninstalled Carrara everything including the program. Cleaned my pc with CCleaner, ran disk defrag, disk cleanup, looked in the registry and roaming data for any traces of Carrara and got rid of it so there would be no conflicts for when I start again.
I think for Carrara I may have to do everything manually because DIM apparently is doing something wonky.So I downloaded the product zips and Inside each zip is a main folder Carrara_8.5;8;7.2;7;6. Inside that folder is Data, Presets, Readme's, Scenes folders in most of the products I purchased.
I just did a clean install of C8.5 on a computer that never had it installed before using DIM (first time for me), and DIM installed the Carrara 8 Native content and the Carrara 8.5 and 8.5 Pro native content right where it was supposed to go, so that stuff should be fine. The 3rd party products were a bit iffy. The newer ones worked fine, but I can see that I am going to have to go through the zip files.
Basically, the easiest way to do this is when you open the zip and you see the files you mentioned, look for those corresponding folders in the Carrara directory, and move or copy the contents to those folders. You can place most of the content in those folders wherever you want, except the data files as was mentioned above by me, and also by Tim.
To see the files, if you placed them in the corresponding folders, Carrara may see them the next time you open it. If you installed the files somewhere besides the default locations, or Carrara didn't see them, you can add them manually by clicking the little black icon on the far right of the Browser window. It is contextual based on the Browser tab you have selected. For example, if you have the Objects browser tab selected, that is where the folder will be added. Carrara will ask you what type of objects are in the folder. If you don't know, just pick one, it won't hurt anything if you're wrong. However, if you load a folder full of textures in the Object browser, then Carrara will not see the content.
I should add that the paint brushes need to be in the proper Carrara directory as well. Same with plugins. If you have a second computer and want to use it for network rendering, then the leaf files and plugins need to be installed on the Render Node machines as well.
I also just had a thought about not seeing stuff. Make sure that you do not install the render nodes on the same machine that the main version of Carrara is installed on.
Thank you for your help. I got everything working and showing in Carrara.
Glad to hear it!
If you need any help in any area of Carrara, there's more than likely a person or two here that can get you pointed in the right direction.
Helpful thread... I also had lost content and wondered where it went too. The "leaves" thing has been particularly problematic, I use Net Render and it was holding up the jobs waiting for me to manually OK the leaves path even though it found them and listed the correct path in the pop up window.
Same was also true for a Gradient .jpg I was using in a replicator. I put that in the same directory as the render project, and the Net Render opened a file browser to the correct location, which actually showed the file there, haha. Not sure why it didn't just select the file itself. Rather annoying.
I use Net Render a lot... any tips on these issues would be appreciated. Thanks.
- Don
This is a great video about understanding and (manually) organizing the Carrara database, everything should be easy to find after doing this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=141&v=dDOhvFmlVX8
Peter.
Thank you!