Setting up a 300ft empty scene preset?

Mistara

kewl, looks like there's stars and asteroids in there.  

more experimental fun
was wondering what pixel aspect ratio did (render output tab).  set it to 10.0, made difference stand out
no changes to camera at all, didnt leave render tab.  pixel aspect ratio made render look sideways.

Dartanbeck

MistyMist said:

A - need a master list of what store content works and doesnt work in rara, with comments regarding partially works

 

B - really wish could use edit, duplicate on a figure

 

A - Carrara-compatable content:

Look at the Content Derscription. What you're looking for is Poser compatibility, but not through DSON. More specifically, CR2, PP2, PP3 files are what DO work with Carrara

 

B - Duplicating a Figure

I think that the main reason that we cannot duplicate rigged figures is because there are too many variables that could possibly change between the master and the dependants. But there is a simple way, if all you need is a simple 'duplicate', and not a complete, separate figure. 

To make a straight up duplicate of a figure, simply add a replicator, set up how many copies you want, and select "Create real instances". Keep in mind that doing so will give you copies of ther figure that cannot be changed in almost any way. Now you may ungroup the new figures and move them where you need them, even if they're animated. Just know that we cannot adjust morphs or poses separately on figures replicated in this way. 

Fenric's plugin essentially takes some steps out of the equation for the user, omitting one part of it. What it does is essentially pretends that it's adding the figure (or whatever is selected) to the browser, and bringing it back into the scene. The part that is omitted is the actual adding to the browser.

To speed up my workflow in my animations, I simply add all of my figures to my browser in an organized fashion. For LoRez background people, I simply make the appropriate folder to save it in, and drag the figure in from the instances tray. For more 'important' figures, I actually do a "Save As" to the appropriate folder in my browser.

Dragging new instances of a figure into Carrara can become much faster than the time it takes to load the original. I've noticed this with almost all types of figure. Lorenzo LoRez will take x amount of time the first load. Then I set him up to be a good basic template for the new folks I want to make and drag that finished figure into my custom browser. Now I change my original into an actual actor, then drag in a new template figure. I've noticed that this new instance loads much quicker than the first instance, perhaps as long as the original instance remains in the scene. 

Do those tips help you at all, or am I way off base?

Dartanbeck

Added some images to help... hopefully ;)

Mistara

thanks.
i originally wanted to duplicate an angel fish for all the textures in the water color set.  i ended up using 2 fish, lol.

also can't entirely trust the poser compatible.  i've had trouble with Aiko3 clothing items, work in poser, but not in rara.  

haven't been able to figure out why the pacific rockfish won't work.

then there's the uvwrapping issues.  

would like to rely on a tried and tested list, to lookup stuff i think about buying.

Dartanbeck

If it works in Poser, then try saving it again within Poser, back to the same location under a new name, like: Rockfish_Misty, or something. It can often fix whatever is wrong with why it won't work in Carrara. With Aiko 3 and other older things, if it doesn't seem to work in Carrara, same thing. Add the clothes in Poser, then save the character (clothed) back to the DAZ People folder, or wherever... as long as it's in that Figures structure of the runtime. If a morph that you wish to use is acting incorrectly in Carrara, turn the morph on in Poser and save it. Then open it in Carrara. Sometimes it can fix the problem. The reason is that some artists have different workflows, and the files they've used aren't the files Carrara is expecting to use.

So for duplicating fish, we can animate one fish swimming and then put it in a replicator to make a school of them. The standard replicator works great for this. Add some random parameters to their placement and such and we can often get great results without any further intervention! ;)

Mistara

would be fun to try anything glows on the fish skin, or scales rather

Dartanbeck

MistyMist said:

would be fun to try anything glows on the fish skin, or scales rather

Interesting idea.

Mistara

well tavern is definitely needing beer  cheers

thinking ... if can replicate straw for a tiki bar canopy.  would need randomness
tavern spposed to be in the swamp realm.  dont know why swamp realm makes me think tiki bar

Dartanbeck

The thing that I don't particularly care for with replicated straw for thatch, is that the actual thatch isn't really a good focal point except for, perhaps, some strange, rare shot. If the thatch IS the main focal point, knock yourself out. Otherwise it ends up taking up too much computer resources, bogging everything down.

Here. I made this map in a few seconds in Howler. It's not the best, but it is an example of how we can use simple meshes with bump and texture maps to make things like that that render fast and don't take up too much resources. Again... this is just an example of what you could come up with after some time working with things.

MarkIsSleepy

Dartanbeck said:

The thing that I don't particularly care for with replicated straw for thatch, is that the actual thatch isn't really a good focal point except for, perhaps, some strange, rare shot. If the thatch IS the main focal point, knock yourself out. Otherwise it ends up taking up too much computer resources, bogging everything down.

Here. I made this map in a few seconds in Howler. It's not the best, but it is an example of how we can use simple meshes with bump and texture maps to make things like that that render fast and don't take up too much resources. Again... this is just an example of what you could come up with after some time working with things.

You could take a map like that and add a few hundred thick Carrara hairs to it with a straw colored shader to add a little bit of randomness and detail too - I like doing that on rugs and have been playing with it to add stray threads to sweaters too. 

Dartanbeck

True! 

Dartanbeck

Another method, I used the map above on the terrain modeler at 10' x 10' without using the map at all in the shader, just a woodgrain color gradient. Takes a while to render though.

Mistara

thanks! 

well.  here goes.  ready to start the animtion project. rendering scenes from my novels.

all the content collecting, s/w collecting (morph vox, soundforge, corel suite), mimic, studying, writing the novels,
- haz all been for this proj.

>.<

Proj #8 ...

it was a dark and stormy night - seriously was 

Diomede

That is great.  Would love to see any of your project WIPs as you progress.  Good fortune to you.

Mistara

thanks.  havent checked out all the animated export options. other than .gif.  would like a format with sound

dont have a tool to edit .mov files :/

Dartanbeck

I guess they still sell Quicktime Pro even though it's no longer supported. But I've been told by several people here that it's invaluable to working with .mov files.

Yeah, I'm glad to hear of your progress and would love to see some WIPs too! Sweet!

Dartanbeck

I use full-frame avi

evilproducer

Find something cheap if you can't afford much, but if you need to string together clips or add audio, then you need a video editor. Seriously. Carrara can use sound files, but it is not a video or audio editor. It is meant to help with audio syncing for animation purposes and is fairly limited.

Dartanbeck

Agreed. I wasn't satisfied with something about any of the free offerings, so I've invested in Vegas Home Studio Platinum and Corel VideoStudio Pro.

I do as much actual clip editing as I need individually in Howler, then send those into Sony Home Studio to cut my movie together, including sounds and music. I haven't tried Corel's VideoStudio for production like that yet, but it is really cool, and has a nice screen-capture feature, which I use for my YouTube tutorial/babble-sessions. But then I used Sony to edit those and wreck them with music and hideous sound effects! LOL

Dartanbeck

Howler is really cool! It's fantastic for color grading and subtle (or not-so-subtle) effects. But it can also open sequenced images of nearly any type, as well as avi files (but not animated gif, I don't think), and then save them as either type: avi or image sequence, regardless of the initial format. It even supports Codecs, but I don't use them until after final production. It doesn't even need (I don't think) the actual image sequence master file. I'm fairly certain that you can jsut select any imagers in the same folder, and import them as an animation. You can even make your own animated sequences starting from nothing but a blank file. It even has some 3d functions. Oooops... sounding like a comercial! No... just a really happy and impressed customer! He never stops developing it either. Project Dogwaffle just ROCKS!

evilproducer

You wouldn't want animated gifs for anything but limited web page use, such as animated buttons or banners, and even that use is falling out of favor as new tech and standards are introduced. Gifs also only use 256 colors with dithering to make it look like more, so the color depth is aweful.

Dartanbeck

Agreed. But they do still have their uses, even though they look like... well... that way they look! LOL

Mistara

doh the ambient sounds i recorded on my phone are in .amr format.

dont have sound forge, forgot i ended up buying 
Sony ACID Music Studio 9. and 
Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 Production Suite, 
Corel Photo & Video Pro X3 Bundle.

dont know how to use any of em yet.

cleared up 200gb on my hdd, some video exporting room :D

Mistara

there's an objectcatalog pdf in carrara help.  nice to browse it while iz busy rendering.

looking for where to set the nudge amount for the mouse wheel, is leaping farther than i need in 30ft mode.

want one of those floating carriers, like in the marvel Avenger's movie. 

Mistara

trying to test if rara can read .pmd files.  so far doesn't seem to.

won't load the morphs to move curtains in ravenskull hall.

gonna try the d3d binary editor when i get home. might be able to make inj files. 

Mistara

does anyone know the world size for the 30ft scene?

thanks 

still trying to rescale terrains for 300ft preset.

the terrain editor has the setting near the top for world size in ft.

lower down setting says 8.33ft.  

so far, everything i do loses the mountains.  

was thinking could make a not so wide couple of mountains, then replicate it to make it a surroundscape 
howies snow scene has like a mini mountain terrain behind the main snow section.

Dartanbeck

MistyMist said:

looking for where to set the nudge amount for the mouse wheel, is leaping farther than i need in 30ft mode.

Select "Scene" in the instances tray. It's the middle tab on the top... "Interface" tab, I think.

want one of those floating carriers, like in the marvel Avenger's movie. 

Yes! Me too!

there's an objectcatalog pdf in carrara help.  nice to browse it while iz busy rendering.

Nice perusal material. Agreed.