Carrara Noob Questions
zombiewhacker
Posts: 680
Like all of us, I'd like to conserve as much HD space as possible. Therefore, if I can put off installing Bryce and Hexagon (and any other modelling programs out there) and simply use Studio and Carrara, all to the better.
As far as Carrara/Hexagon comparisons go:
I assume Carrara is considered the superior program by far, but is there anything Hexagon can do that Carrara can't? For instance, is there a Studio-Carrara bridge like there is with Studio-Hexagon?
Does Carrara have a built-in decimator?
As far as Bryce is concerned, I have no need for an environmental modeller right now. However, I would like to use some Bryce content in Carrara. Specifically, I'm thinking of these packages:
http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-5-5-content-kit-volume-1
http://www.daz3d.com/bryce-5-0-content-pack
Can Carrara import Bryce content? Thanks in advance.
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Lot of Hexagon tools were ported over to Carrara, or at least in function. "Copy on Support" is one function Carrara doesn't have, that Hexagon does. "Copy on Support" is usual for taking several instances of an objection and putting it on a line, circule or any other line shape. This is useful for making jewelry or repetive art that needs several instances. Some say Hexagon is easier to model in as it only has one room for modeling. Depends on what one is used to doing.
I have ported from Bryce trees and landscape without any problem. There is some problem with color shading, but other than that - everything is okay.
Alternative modeling programs like Zbrush and 3Dcoat are an option if it is within budget. Zbrush can directly interact with Carrara making morphs, changes in shading, texture, complicated modeling (including hair and landscaping objects). 3Dcoat can export in OBJ, DAE, FBX, LWO, COB (trueSpace) and and many other formats - most of which Carrara can import directly.
Depends what your plans are. If it is humanoid modeling, I would recommend using DAZ Studio morphing or commercial add-ons as they're easy. If you like home grown stuff, both Hexagon and Carrara can do that. Exotic functions like armor with designs on them or complicated accessories may be more easily done in Zbrush or 3DCoat.
Bryce also makes HDR, which is quite helpful in lighting. Bryce also can bake very complicated backdrops which can be used as a lighting or as a backdrop in a scene.
I use all of the above as I'm a fickled type of person and love having lots of tools.
If you're staying with DAZ products, I'd install all three. Each has their own advantages and excel in one area over the other. However, Carrara can do it all (almost), so one can stay with one 0product and do just fine. There are also many fine render engine options with Carrara.
The key to any tool is use it and use it often, so one doesn't get rusty.
hth
(padlock scene made. shaded and rendered in 3Dcoat)
.
As far as comparisons between Hex and Carrara, well, Hex is standalone modeler and can export objects to Carrara natively. Carrara does not have a direct bridge to Studio, but it can export .obj files, which Studio can read, and were the geometries for Poser style figures such as the Mil4 figures and earlier.
Hex is a dedicated vertex modeler, and Carrara has one of those. Carrara also has a UV editor. Additionally, it also has a Spline modeler, Meta-ball modeler, a terrain generator/editor and a plant generator/editor. There are also a bunch of modifiers and deformers.
I do know there are some tools that Hex has, that Carrara does not. I do not use Hex, so I don't recall what they are. Carrara's modeler gets dumped on by some folks, but for me it is stable and does what I need. Then again, I consider myself an intermediate novice. ;-)
Carrara Pro can read and export many formats, but the Bryce format is it's own animal and I'm not sure Carrara can read a native Bryce formatted object. Bryce can export formats Carrara can read.
Going back to Carrara and Studio for a moment: Carrara can read .duf, so for some things, many folks here use Studio as kind of a plugin for Carrara. They may set up certain scene elements or auto-convert clothing items from a V4 format to something Genesis 2 could wear in Studio and then use it in Carrara. Others will build clothing in Carrara and export it, and open it in Studio to make a conforming clothing item. Carrara does have its own rigging
I tend to agree with Mr. Acrobat. There's nothing better, IMO, than just installing them and trying them. We could list all the differences between the apps, but those features may or not matter to you.
When using software apps like this, it's 60% what you "like" about the app and 40% about the actual feature differences, IMO. Or something like that....
Regarding Hex vs. Carrara, to answer your question, yeah, there's a lot of Hex features that Carrara doesn't have. But those features might be irrelevant to what you're doing. I think it's safe to say that you can do just about *anything* in any modelling app. It's all about making vertices and faces and moving them arround. What's important is how efficient and intuitive and easy each app is designed for you and your particular work.
Personally, FWIW, I rarely use Carrara's built in modeller solely because I find it counterintuitive and lacking some features I use regularly. Others disagree and love Carrara's modeller.
Well, for myself, I like that I can build/edit a vertex object in the Assembly Room. This comes in very handy for building things in accurate relation to other scene elements.
I'm using components from DAZ's Rural Chateau and adding a counter/cabinet to the scene. It is not meant to match the moulding in the room, but is supposed to be reminiscent of how sometimes when a big old house is sub-divided into smaller apartments, the newer stuff doesn't always match the older architecture. I did need to make the counter fit properly in the corner, and the ability to model it in the Assembly room was a big help.
This image was done in Carrara using an exported model from Bryce:
http://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/64658
Regarding HD space, Bryce takes 500 MB on my drive, pretty small.
Hey Steve, how was it exported? To .obj, or Bryce's native format?
I always liked that image.
Design Acrobat gave an excellent and detailed answer above, and so did Evil, I'll just say 'ditto' to their many points :) I have Bryce but have never installed it. Shame on me, since I didn't know til reading Acrobat's post above that it Bryce could make HDR, that does sound useful indeed.
Hex enthusiasts will tell you that Hex is superior in modeling to Carrara, it has a few tools for Vertex modeling that Carrara doesn't have. For me personally since I'm a novice at modeling and since Hex crashed all the time when I tried to learn it, I just stuck with Carrara, and I've never felt limited in what Carrara can do, but there are certainly others (more talented by far than me) that do not like vertex modeling in Carrara much, a quick search of the forums here will probably yield a thread or two. On the other hand there's a thread somewhere titled 'Anybody modeling in Carrara?' or something like that which is filled with pages and pages of awesome stuff being done in Carrara, and Mike Moir has some instruction videos in the Daz store which when I watch it he uses Carrara as naturally as breathing, left me in awe of his speed and skills.
There isn't a bridge to Studio from Carrara, though people certainly do export/import to and from Studio. I don't use Studio much myself, mostly only to get stuff out of Studio and into Carrara, not the other way around.
And as Evil mentioned above, Carrara has many more modelers than just the Vertex modeler (though the Vertex modeler is full featured, don't get me wrong). Here's a partial list I jotted down in another forum post:
- full featured vertex modeler
- vertex modeling in the assembly room (can model around posed figures in the scene if needed)
- spline modeler
- meta ball modeler
- plant/tree modeler
- dynamic hair modeler
- text modeler
- cloud modeler
- fire modeler
- fog modeler
- fountain modeler
- ocean modeler
- landscape/terrain modeler
- particles modeler with multiple different particle emitter types
- realistic skies creator/modeler that also can animate cloud/sun/moon movement
- 3d Painting Tools
Not to mention there are numerous plugins that add even more modeling functions, like Architools, which is great for quickly modeling buildings and houses.
I hadn't really thought of it, but I also find this a really useful feature as well, the ability to model directly in the assembly room, around other props, people, etc. Do most other modelers have something similar? I figure they must, otherwise how would people make and model clothing (for example) unless they are modeling it onto a character/figure.
Hi DA,
Thanks for the enlightening post. Can you explain a bit more on the above? Commercial add-ons?
Do you mean just using the morphs for characters that come with DS (or aftermarket like 186 Mprphs-Die Trying), or actually tweaking facial features, like enlarging noses, pulling face forward, etc using DS parameter tools? I find Cararra usually very useful in using these same parameter tools, plus I can do some more in the Modelling room in Animation mode. A couple of years ago, I first started out trying to morph in only DS to get the desired effect, but struggled to get the looks I needed.
So I switched to doing this only in Carrara. Still, there are problems when trying to customise rigged/morphed DS characters in the Modelling room. It's hit or miss and I do wish Carrara had the precise tweaking in Modelling as Hex did (without the crashing in spite of a supposed fix).
In Carrara it's very easy to lose a morph, especially in the head (around eyes), with extreme tweaking or even displacement painting if I go a step 'too far' in Animation mode. And your changes are not guaranteed to "hold". I have done things to the base figure's mesh in the Modelling room. I just have to use my imagination to operate on a perfect 0-based figure vs the one I have already morphed. Lots of switching back and forth between Model and Animation modes, then to Assy room to see what has happened. This seem to work in a way, although I think someone told me a long time ago that the base figure (eg the Genesis or M4/V4 model) does not like having its mesh directly worked on in this way in Carrara. As long as I stay away from the eyeballs and lips, I have had some luck.
Here is my Neanderthal woman which is about a year old. I am now rebuilding a new one trying different methods. I have'heard' about head-transplants, but worry about removing one, working on it as an object, and then trying to re-morph them to get mouth and eyes to work again, nevermind successfully re-attaching them to their original body! Don't want to waste time doing that if not workable. I have tried detaching skeletons, but the head area is a whole other world vs arms and legs. Eyeballs, tongues, blinking...yikes. (Certainly cannot imagine it being possible with G3) Is this even possible for M/V4 or Genesis, or Genesis 2 in Carrara? In another programme? Is there a tutorial?
Good question about Bryce, thanks Zombie for bringing it up. I have often wondered about this, too.
I appreciate your responses.
As far as the Studio -> Carrara workflow goes: can I export a DAZ figure to Carrara (say, Vickie), sculpt her features in Carrara, then export her back to DAZ as a figure without messing up the original rigging, weight-mapping, and what have you?
I also wondered whether Carrara has a decimator -- that is to say, a function that reduces the number of polygons in a figure or a prop (in order to save memory and speed up render times). Decimator, the DAZ store product, does this automatically, but I'm told on these boards that most good modelling programs have a decimator-function already built in.
Hi zombiewhacker, Carrara does have a Decimate tool, if what I am showing is what you mean. I have no experience using it. I think I tried in the past on simple objects and got similar disasterous results like these pictures. I'm confident user error is playing a big part...
Mostly just dialing in the morph on the particular model. Now that Carrara mostly supports dialing morphs, there isn't a need to export from Daz if one cannot get the morph baked on export. Depends on the model's or item vertex order is the same from DAZ Studio and in Carrara. If it isn't preserved, then the problem is with process. I would try other exports like FBX to preserve the process of morphing. If it isn't preserved, then export a copy of the morphed item or humanoid and adjust it accordingly in Carrara.
Thanks... I use those in Carrara now all the time for this reason. Back to the drawing board!
Silene
Above it was mentioned that Carrara has a UV editor. Is that the same thing as a UV mapper, or will I need a separate utility for that?
I have a noob question... how the heck do you use Daz content in Carrara?
To date, I've managed to access Daz Studio stuff (figures, etc) precisely zero times in Carrara, with a dozen+ attempts. Obj files, sure, I an import that.
Is there some easy way to access Genesis and other content that I'm missing?
I use a lot of Genesis and Genesis 2 content in Carrara. 95% of the time I load it directly in Carrara from the "Content" tab (not smart content), not as a duf or obj export from Studio. I do use Studio to convert legacy content for V3/M3/V4/M4 etc. for use with Genesis and Genesis 2 as wearable presets. Once that is done, I then load them directly in Carrara. That is my preferred work flow, but I know others prefer a different approach. The following thread has a lot of tips for using Genesis and Genesis 2 content in Carrara. The thread is not in any particular logical order, but I do recommend that you start at the beginning of the thread anyway.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/best-practices-using-genesis-and-genesis-2-content-in-carrara/p1
Hope it helps.
Another few failures to generate anything useful. (I managed to get one figure loaded as a .duf from Content, it then had completely garbled materials)
So, yeah, my vote for Carrara improvements is 'ability to use Daz content'
I have posted a step-by-step walk through of using a genesis 2 character and content natively in Carrara here.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/63712/thinking-of-purchasing-a-few-questions#latest
Hope it helps. If it doesn't, am willing to try to help diagnose the problem you report if you explain the steps you are taking and specific errors that you experience. Screen shots always make it easier to diagnose.
Same here, as I am slowly morphing away from using V4/M4 and making Genesis1 my main figure (Genesis2 works fine for me too, I just prefer Genesis1). Happy to help if I can, if you want to throw out some specifics, maybe if we both own the same product I can see if I can replicate the problems you're running into.
A major stumbling block for me was that I was putting my studio stuff in the wrong folders, for me there is a 'My Library' which was located in my documents section and a 'My Daz 3D Library' which I had no idea existed which was inside my Users/Public/Public Documents/ folder filepath. Studio recognized and was able to use stuff just fine from the 'My Library', while Carrara could see the stuff was there, but when I tried to load it it often would crash, or wouldn't load, or had other problems. When I found out that the correct filepath was for this 'My Daz 3D Library' and moved my stuff over there, like magic everything duf loaded just fine in Carrara.
But I'm a Windows user and none of that my apply to your situation, just throwing it out there.
Will have you been able to access any of the regular daz/poser content? You have to add the folders if you haven't I will dig up a link.
I use the Products list in Smart Content - works beautifully. Just scroll down to "V" and all your Vickies are there.
The "Content" tab I find works best with Poser-style runtimes. I have a separate runtime set up for Rendo stuff and Hivewire stuff, and then there's the God-alone-knows-where-the-hell-anything-is scattergun Library and Libraty Runtime folders that DIM sets up.
I utilize the Products List as well in Smart Content.
Only if it cant find the files I will go back to the old way of the content tab.
If the Smart content tab is not populated make sure the database is running.
I find that if I have DIM running then start Carrara I have no issues with the DataBase works properly.
Ah ha!
Given conversation here, I assumed I should avoid smart content. Nooo. I should USE smart content.
While I still have trouble opening stuff and lack of geografts is off-putting, I've actually managed to access stuff. Yay!
Looks like a lot of funky morphs I have in Daz don't work/aren't visible in Carrara, at least so far... is it likely they just won't work, or do I need to hunt?
Is it normal for saves to take a while?
I have a G2M with Omri hair, a jacket, pants. It takes maybe 5 minutes for it to save. ??
Yes, I've found saves can take a while :) One of the things I like to do is put together a character (figure, clothing, hair, morphs, props etc) and group it (ctrl 'G') name it, then drag and drop it into my Objects tab. It will turn it into a Carrara object, and in future will load much faster for any future scenes I might use that character in.
When saving it can take some time, it also depends on if you are saving it internal or external. Meaning if you have V4 rather than saving a copy of V4 in the scene itself, it just has a pointer where V4 was loaded from taking less room.
I rather recently watched a video on smart content and I have a better grip I have a ton of runtime and DazStudio directories that I install various things into, V4, V3, Buildings, Animals etc. I have been using basicly adding the runtime and DS Runtime to by content browser.
I guess my quesion on you finding stuff, wether you are using DIM to put everything in One Directory or many as a way of sorting are you adding those to your content browser both types. The example I posted is my 'Poser' Runtime of V4 of content I installed via DIM