Any tutorials, articles on how to load daz characters into Carrara? Having Problems.

HorusRa

One of the very first things I purchased when I first started using Daz Studio last April or so was Carrara. Because of the learning curve and lack of documentation, I didnt get far with it and I must admit that it's been sadly neglected for the last several months. I fired her up earlier today with the idea of getting somewhere with it, that was short lived, as it usually is. Wasn't very long before I closed it right back down and resumed doing some pieces in Daz Studio.
What I tried to do was load Mei Lin 6 into Carrara, no problems. I started finding (as usual) moving around in the content and finding the same was a bit daunting and time consumming. After some time I finally found some of my hair (a few out of a lot that I own) and loaded a compatable one for Mei Lin, and.............. Suprise!!!! Unlike in Daz Studio, the hair was floating a bit above her head. I have no idea how to solve that in Carrara, not even sure why it did it.
Any suggestions on articles, tutorials, etc on loading characters into Carrara and working with them, etc?

Diomede

This thread contains a tutorial for getting started with Callie 6, but the same ideas apply to Mei Lin 6.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/64979/genesis2#latest

 

Diomede

And here is a thread that addresses a wider variety of G2F issues.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45361/best-practices-using-genesis-and-genesis-2-content-in-carrara/p1

 

HorusRa

Oh my!
Thanks for the helpful info. I read through the bulk of that info. Sounds like there are a ton o' problems with g & g2 in Carrara. I did not know that. Not sure the benefits outway the drawbacks of even bothering with all that. Theres a ton of stuff in there to remember and have to put up with. Sounds like a tension headache for me, literally, seriously. Wished I'd known this months ago, a bit more than irked for having purchased Carrara I think now. Comes down to my fault though. Anyway, don't mean to rant or upset anyone. I'll bookmark that thread and in the meantime decide if Carrara will be worth bothering with, for me.

WendyLuvsCatz

I find g2F and m easy to use in carrara if you stick to two rules

only use stuff made for them not autofitted

open model bit of figure heirachy in vertex room select all and turn of smoothing

need to do on all the clothes too

you can still add subduv for rendering if wanted

Diomede

I actually find Genesis and Genesis 2 very easy to use in Carrara.  I think the biggest hurdle for people coming from Daz Studio is trying to do a Studio command instead of a Carrara command.  For example, I don't just double click a piece of conforming clothing or just drag it onto the genesis figure, like in Studio.  I load the conforming figure in the scene separately and then use the "fit to" menu in Carrara's properties tray (upper right box).  It is very easy and works very well.  One or two click solution.  Similarly, now that I understand what is going on with the shaders, I only have to fix it once and save the fixed shader.  In the future, just a one click solution.  Now that I know that I can ignore the protected topology warning, I find it incredibly easy to fix minor poke through or create a custom morph.

 

But, how would anyone know how easy it is?  No documentation.  Aaargh.  That is why we have those threads. 

PhilW

The first few chapters of my tutorial series are freely available and may be of help to you to get started in Carrara.

http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-carrara-8.html

HorusRa

PhilW said:

The first few chapters of my tutorial series are freely available and may be of help to you to get started in Carrara.

http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-carrara-8.html

Hi Phil, Thanks for the info. I don't know if I knew that or not, if I have watched them, I should watch them again. Maybe my questions are answered therein and I just don't realize/remember. I am glad you wrote though, as I have been meaning to get in touch with Infinite Skills. I can't spend $99 on just a tutorial video, for me that is very expensive, I mean for just a video, however, I did find one of you and I.S. Carrara videos somewhere pretty cheap, I don't recall where I got it, but it was significantly discounted (think it was brand new on ebay). I think I may have paid 20 - $25 for it. I did find it somewhat informative, the best I remember, however, to my surprise when I first watched it; there was/is an entire chapter missing. As I mentioned I can't afford 99 for a video, but this one was cheaper because it is for Carrara 7. I can't remember the chapter order but the missing chapter video is "Shaders," something I was really looking forward to seeing and learning about because Carrara shaders really throw me, don't understand them one bit. The name of the video dvd is: "Learning Carrara 7." I'm guessing they were long aware of the missing chapter now? If so, did they make the missing part available for download? From what I remember the video was decent and there didn't seem to be such a "major" difference between the version where the video was just not helpful, which I find usual unless there is such a wide gap between versions, or it just so happens coincidently to be major overhaul versions, which 7 & 8 obviously were not.

PhilW

HorusRa - sorry you found something missing, I have never heard of that before.   I can't help you directly, but maybe if you contacted Infinite Skills they may be able to help.  They have a monthly access system so you pay so much per month and can access all their training material, so you could sign up for a month, just to cover the parts which were missing from your video set and maybe add in the sections on the C8 and C8.5 features which would not have been on your original set.

Also the sets are sometmes available at quite a heavy discount here at the Daz Marketplace and elsewhere.