New Guy questions about Carrara 8 vs Studio 4
bobh
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I came across a 3rd party renderer for Studio 4.5, based on LuxRender, from Pret-a 3D. It looks like it produces some incredibly beautiful results.
It got me thinking about probably some of the most basic - but unanswered (on my part) - questions i have come up with during my extremely severe noobness as I learn the ropes of the Daz 3D product family:
If both Carrara and Studio are able to do pretty nice rendering in their own right, what does one do that the other doesn't? In other words, aside from obvious character creation abilities in DS, what other reasons are there that both products have not been merged and why the DAZ 3D artist has to have both of them in their arsenals for "more complete" character animation?
Is the answer as simple as Studio being required to make use of the DAZ content? Why can't Carrara do this without DS?
And why on earth is Carrara costing so much when DS is free?
I'm sure these are stupid questions, but good answers will keep me from asking again. :-)
Ok, I know I probably opened up a can of woopass on myself here, so let me have it.
Thanks
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to paraphrase: "Why does my pocket snapshot camera only cost $60, when my DSLR costs over $500? especially when both cameras can take photos of my mother, but the snapshot is so much easier to use because it has presets like Beach and Nighttime, while the DSLR is really complicated with lots of buttons and settings that I don't understand?"
And to further the analogy: "Why does Nikon say I should buy BOTH cameras to round out my complete photography needs? Couldn't I just take all my photos with the snapshot OR the DSLR? Why would I need both? Should I really carry both cameras at all times to get the perfect photo?"
;)
Now to discuss renderers. Carrara has its own render engine that was based on a program called Ray Dream which was created by French developers waaaaaaay back in the day when computers were very slow and had little memory. For its day Ray Dream could rival Lightwave in render quality, but Ray Dream was budget priced and had a simpler interface. If you were a small studio or working artist it was great to be able to get good looking renders from a budget program, since Lightwave was priced for big studios and television.
Someone got the smart idea to buy up a whole group of budget-priced 3D software (including Ray Dream, Poser, Bryce, and a few others that no longer exist but that did different aspects of 3D). Their purpose didn't really overlap, Poser was for figures, RayDream was merged with another general purpose program and renamed Carrara, Bryce did landscapes.... All were given an interface makeover by an interface guru named Kai Krause and the company was called MetCreations. Despite having the market on budget-priced 3D MetaCreations went belly up and the programs were sold off and scattered to the winds..., but a lot of people had them in their toolkit now. The programs didn't really talk to each other at all, but they had a common userbase.
Eventually Carrara (owned by Eovia which had developed Carrara/RayDream plugins) made a plugin that allowed Poser scenes to be imported (but not edited). Meanwhile DAZ3D was making high-end figures for Poser but Poser5 was going through a development crises and hadn't been updated in years. Daz bought Bryce and probably tried to buy Poser, but licensed an existing 3rd party render engine and began to create DAZ STUDIO. Probably for licensing reasons, DAZ was prevented from using exact Poser scene format, but Carrara had the Poser plugin so (I believe, but it has never been said officially) There was a loophole with Carrara being able to read Poser files. Partly to further gain Poser compatibility, partly "trying to get the band back together" to have the budget suite from MetaCreations, and partly because DAZ wanted a general purpose 3D program, DAZ bought Carrara from Eovia and kept the development team for many years. Carrara6 was tooled to be able to edit Poser scenes (native support), but many Carrara users complained that DAZ was only focused on Victoria and Mike, yadda yadda ya.
Eventually Poser changed hands and the vibe between Poser and DAZ became friendlier - the result was that the Poserverse was suddenly MUCH larger with both DS and Carrara able to utilize content, and the Poser content boom was good for everybody.
So long story short, DAZ wasn't really a software developer, they made models. But because of the Poser crises DAZ licenced a 3rd party renderer for Studio and bought a complete program with Carrara and enhanced its Poser compatibility. Bryce was able to import static Poser and DS scenes. They all use different render engines, so they all have their quirks and specialties. Studio was designed for DAZ's models, with a 3rd party plugin architecture to gain almost all other functions. Carrara also has a plugin architecture but most of it was developed inhouse, so Carrara starts with many modules that you'd have to buy for DS. Carrara is a complete general purpose 3D program that also does Poser models. Poser and DS only do Poser models. Bryce is a landscape program that has some level of DAZ compatibility.... And I hear Poser is gaining plugin architecture very soon..... Everyone evolves.
The render engine you mentioned (LuxRender) is actually an open source render engine without an interface. It is free for anyone to use and like all the other engines it has its specialties and quirks. There was discussion of a Reality plugin for Carrara, but Carrara already has a great render engine and many Carrara users wouldn't have really gained aanything new, except this very specific render engine which is much slower than Carrara's. Where Studio users were really gaining something new, Carrara can achieve similar quality on its own (once you know how to use it) although not via the same technique. There are a few optional render engines for Carrara specifically ToonPro and WireframePro from Digital Carver's Guild and the builtin NonPhotoreal Renderer....
I will answer in my typical, yet most unsatisfying, manner...
It depends on what you want to do.
Some people probably spend many years happily using DAZ Studio, and others probably spend many years happily using Carrara.
If you like gathering with and playing with software, as many here do, get them all and switch from one to the other as the mood strikes. We could spend a lot of time trying to make a list of differences, but none of them may matter to you. D|S is free, so get it. Hex is free, so get it. Bryce is free, so get it. Blender is free, so get it. If you want to build a complete arsenal of tools, then start with all the free stuff.
Bottom line, there is no perfect software that does everything you might want, both now and in the future. So if you want to have every tool you could possibly want, but will probably never use, then just download all the free stuff you can. You'll probably spend the next few years figuring out what it all does.
However (and this is the most distasteful part, so tune out now if you don't want a bad taste in your mouth), if you want to really learn about CGI and/or animating, then you might want to consider reading a book on the basics that apply across all software, and then pick your software based on your knowledge of how it all works and what you want to learn about.
Holly had a good recap of the history and highlighting the differences, Joe is maintaining his consistency and he's correct - read and learn what you can so you can make informed decisions.
DAZ Studio and Carrara are separate programs that couldn't be merged if they wanted. They are designed very differently as Holly showed. There was some time that elapsed between the beginning of Studio and when eovia left the USA and sold Carrara to DAZ. Many of the Carrara users are do it yourselfers and not that much into content (but there are a few more content users like myself these days). The folks who use DAZ Studio are very much into content. DAZ's main business is selling content for DAZ Studio and Poser. So DAZ can really justify having Studio free as they had for years until they developed the Advance and Pro lines and the surviving Pro line is still free at the moment - the software helps drive content sales and the hope of DAZ keeping it free so more folks can learn the tools in DAZ Studio that can help with developing Genesis content - more content than can be sold. My pretty good guess is Carrara doesn't move all that much content so someone has to pay for the development. So the price stays for Carrara, though if you are a PC member and get in on sales, etc., Carrara is affordable. And DAZ Studio Pro could go back to having a price, especially when they come out with 5 which will probably have more new stuff.
The stated hope of DAZ in the past has been that they hope DAZ Studio users who want to advance to a more complete and advanced package would move up to Carrara. Some have. But then you have all the folks who get locked into an interface and can't get past it (the folks Joe talks about) because they really don't have the basics down pat.
There's also the difference in the render engines. 3Delight is a professional level render engine that has had many features turned off so DAZ could include it without charging the high price that the developers of 3Delight get from the movie studios and production houses that use it. It's based on the Pixar Renderman standard. Oh yeah, it also has the much simpler DAZ interface to run it - most DAZ users would be lost trying to use it like the technical folks at studios do - too much typing of code.
Carrara's render engine was developed long ago and is very fast if you use mainly distance, spot, bulb and tube lights (not GI). It is capable of turning out some very nice renders like Luxrender and much faster or much longer depending on your settings. If you crank up the photons when doing GI, and if you are very picky about textures and HDRI, and if you know and understand lighting (you have to read the books!!!), then you can get results comparable to LuxRender using Reality as an interface for DAZ Studio and soon for Poser. You can even get really fast, good looking fake GI renders using the regular lights the proper way in arrays like a sky dome, ambient lighting, highlighting and ground lighting combined.
Because the render engines are different, there are differences in the shader systems. No two render engines use shaders the exact same way.
There are other differences you'll get if you read up on this stuff.
I myself used to try the do it yourself method in Animation:Master. I banged my head against the wall for many years in what little free time I had trying to get that program to make what I wanted, but it's not easy as it had fewer features then to get the realism I was after. All 3D programs can do cartoony easily... A:M is great at that. I wanted characters that looked as good as what I was seeing in Poser and the more advanced programs of the time, like Lightwave and 3ds Max, both of which I could not afford unless I wanted to save my money for a few years and ignore my bills and retirement. DAZ had the content I liked, but Studio was weak (not 3Delight but the way Studio was configured) and I could not import DAZ content, or much content really, into A:M. Carrara was the closest and most affordable thing I could buy that could rival Lightwave in render quality and I could upgrade from an older copy of RayDream I had and get all the new features in Carrara (3 I think it was) and use and animate DAZ content (more easily animate than Poser which was glacial on my PC back then and with much more control than Poser with more animation tools). I've dabbled in both Carrara and the newer Advanced and now Pro versions of Studio the past couple years. They both have their uses.
You can use most DAZ content in Carrara already. I believe in 8.5 you'll be able to use most of the stuff you can't use now.
I hope all this and the above posts have cured you of more noobness. ;)
D|S "character creation abilities" are non-existant, unless you mean spinning dials on preset content that you buy. In Carrara you can model and rig and create morphs for your own figure from scratch -- well, *I* can't and probably you can't, but SOME people can, and do.... You can also download free models online and modify them in the modeller (this I can handle). To get this function in D|S I believe you still have to buy additional plugins (rigging) and probably use another program altogether for the modeling....
I don't keep up with D|S much, since I don't need it to use preset content in Carrara - which answers another one of your questions....
Look at the feature list for Carrara, then add up the cost of the plugins that would allow you to do similar in D|S. You will see that D|S is not "free", but is a base platform for more purchases. Also look at your purchase history here at DAZ, you will again discover that D|S is not "free". Presumeably D|S 4.5 won't be free forever....
Carrara seems to have a faster renderer than D|S. For most users that alone would be worth the price of admission.
Carrara also does fbx import with rigging and animation that no other Daz program does.
so third party content from Unity, Unreal, Maya and 3ds Max (in fbx format), iClone and other programs can also be imported rigged and animared.
dae also works a lot of the time, I have gotten Makehuman figures in rigged and saveable (studio will get them in rigged and animatable but will not save them so)
it is ofcourse as said, a modeler, terrain creator etc all in one too.
and has fur and bullet physics,
depends if you want lots of apps that only do a few things though probably better and use video compositing to marry it all or one that does a bit of everthing with out having to do a lot of hoop jumping and importing etc.
I just find I can do most things I want in Carrara without having to open another app.
but
nonetheless I love using a lot of different software anyway.
All good answers, VERY helpful.
Combined responses to all of your wonderful answers:
1. I have books on order.
2. Glad to hear Carrara does it all.
3. I will EVENTUALLY get into modeling, but for now, I think playing with the DAZ/Poser content will suffice for quite some time. Luckily, all the content is cheap, so I can get playing as fast, deep and abundant as I want. This is a wonderful thing. :-)
4. Carrara's proven itself to me that the renderer is adequate in terms of realism when the work is put into it. And JoeMamma - I know, I know, it requires reading books. ;-)
5. Multiple tools: Wendy, you're right. It takes an arsenal of tools to get the job done. This is how my cell phone app development goes. It takes approximately 6 to 10 different apps and development tools to get a new app to the market.
6. Over the past week, I've investigated (and in some cases purchased) different 3D products. I can clearly see I'll be using them for different purposes. But Carrara always comes back to the forefront and beats everything else as the "big cahuna" in my developing arsenal that I'm in the process of learnign how to use (long way to go).
7. Glad to hear that Carrara works with most DAZ content. If I can work with V&M4;, then I'll be happy. I don't know enough about Genesis yet to even know if I need/want anything to do with it yet. Still have yet to look into that.
My goals: animating existing DAZ content with realistic animation, such as mocap. Also, I need to import 3DS rigs into Carrara as well, so I can animate them.
Good answers, everyone, and thanks for the continued support, tips and tricks.
:-)
Wendy,
The more I really nail down my interests, it looks like my goals for Carrara largely fall upon the way you have gone about things. Expressly, this means animating existing DAZ content with realistic motion, and also importing 3DS rigs (FBX) to do the same. I have a feeling that it's going to be a while before I get into modeling (which I will eventualyl need, but it can wait).
Just aheads up, I'll be coming your way with ots of questions. You've been most helpful this far, and I really appreciate it.
M4, V4, etc. can be opened directly in Carrara from the content browser, so scene creation can be done in all one program. Some shader adjustments will need to be done.
And this is a fantastic feature that really opens a lot of doors. This is a very exciting feature of C8 and the DAZ content. Large part of what attracted me to the software - so much of the work is already done and there's a rendered involed that produces "acceptably realistic" results.
Now if I can only find that magic recipe of getting 3DS rigs into Carrara (I'll eventually get this figured out, even if it kills me).
BTW, your render of the ship from Black Hole as amazing. Looks better than a still form the movie (which I haven't seen since it came out when I was a little kid). Got any rigs of old B.O.B and Maximillian? :-)
And this is a fantastic feature that really opens a lot of doors. This is a very exciting feature of C8 and the DAZ content. Large part of what attracted me to the software - so much of the work is already done and there's a rendered involed that produces "acceptably realistic" results.
Now if I can only find that magic recipe of getting 3DS rigs into Carrara (I'll eventually get this figured out, even if it kills me).
BTW, your render of the ship from Black Hole as amazing. Looks better than a still form the movie (which I haven't seen since it came out when I was a little kid). Got any rigs of old B.O.B and Maximillian? :-)
Sorry I missed this. DAZ's site was acting wonky for me last night. Carrara comes with lots of extras, including if I recall correctly V4, M4 and optimized shaders for them. Much more than D/S studio comes with.
Regarding the Cygnus, Thanks for the compliment. I just have to get my ass in gear and finish some of the animations I wish to do with it. I do have a Maximillian. I didn't model it, as I kind of suck at it. Look on ShareCG. There's a Cygnus as well, but the one I found is much nicer. I'll have to dig up the link for it if I can.