Really close to taking the Carrara plunge -- any comments on modeling capabilities?
ModernWizard
Posts: 850
Hi all. I'm really really close to purchasing Carrara today for two reasons:
1) I have the opportunity to buy it for $26.50 with 50% off Daz originals from getting Girl 7 + $6.00 off Daz originals PC+ coupon.
2) Howie Farkes' Maple Meadows is pretty much an idealized version of summer in my home state of Vermont, and I want it!
I also have as a goal this year to learn digital modeling, so Carrara's native modeling capabilities interest me. I'm somewhere between advanced beginner and intermediate with Daz Studio, and I'm pretty decent with morphing and kitbashing, but I haven't scratch-built anything. To someone with my background, are the UI and workflow of Carrara's modeling tools relatively easy to grasp? Any input would be great.
--MW
EDIT: To be honest, I'm also leaning toward Carrara because of the dedicated fanatics in this forum who appear very knowledgeable and eager to help people at any stage of learning!!
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Comments
Modern Wizard,
Is this the Pro or Standard version? I don't think it would make a difference as $26.50 is a very good price for what you get with either version. Carrara has kept me modeling for a long time, it has its limits but whatever you learn in Carrara is transferable to other packages if you ever want to switch in the future. I would say go for it as it is a complete 3d package
There is also a couple of modeling threads in the forums here that show what it can do if you haven't seen them already..
Modeling threads
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/polygon-modeling-post-your-creations-a-new-beginning#latest
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/69132/enjoying-vertex-modelling-in-daz-carrara/p1
Personally, I consider Carrara a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none app. It can do it all, literally. You can model custom props and figures. You can rig models (your own or third party) to make them poseable. You can create landscapes. It has a plant editor and replicators to turn your trees into a forest or your buildings into a city. It has a realistic sky function and volumetric clouds (and that replictor can be used to turn your clouds nto a storm front). It has realistic, toon, and non-photo render engines, including external ones like Lux and Octane. It has a strand-based hair system. It can use Poser 1-8 and Daz figures V/M1-6 natively. Its shader system is very powerful. It can make animations.
Having said that, in general there is usually another program that is superior to Carrara for any single function. For example, Bryce has a more detailed and finely-tuned terrain heightmap editor. Hexagon has more tools for selecting and editing polygon models. There are superior uvmapping programs, etc., etc., etc.
Back to your question. In my opinion, Carrara has an effective polygon modeling tool but it is not the best. In this case, for $26.50, you would also be getting all of Carrara's other functions. They are great, but are only of value if you choose to learn about them. It also has a spline modeler, a metaball modeler, and a formula modeler. For certain projects, the hair system, the terrain editor, and particles can be used to create objects.
The following thread has discussions and examples of some polygon models made in Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28716/polygon-modeling-post-your-creations-a-new-beginning/p1
I would also recommend looking through some of the early Carrara monthly challenge links. Those original challenges often required people to use a different Carrara fnction as part of their entry. It might give you an idea of what else you might get for your money.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/learning-tips-and-tricks-from-prior-carrara-challenge-wip-threads#latest
Note - I am a huge Carrara fan and highly recommed it, especially for that price. Not sure if my post made it clear, but I wanted to be relatively objective.
There are lots of benifits as well as the modeling capabilities.
It has three different modelers the Vertex, Spline and Metaball modelers which are each useful, not to mention is has a terrain editor to make the landscapes, Sky editor for the sky, Volumetric Clouds, Ocean Primitave, Dynamic Hair, Fog, Plant Editor, Fire Primitive, Good Animation tools with the NLA clips.
The Carrara render engine is relativvely fast and provides good results, there is also the LUXUS Luxrender plugin and there is the beta LUXCore plugin for LUX Core, there is also an Octane beta if you have octane. So lots of render engines available.
If you want to see some of the images created in Carrara look in the Carrara Challenge threads the list is here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/learning-tips-and-tricks-from-prior-carrara-challenge-wip-threads#latest
If you have the money I suggest the following tutorials.
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-tutorial-video-11-5-hours-long-instant-digital-download This covers the basics of most of the tools in Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-carrara-techniques This one covers modeling in Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-realism-rendering-training-video This covers how to get more realistic renders out of Carrara
http://www.daz3d.com/create-a-walk-cycle-in-carrara THis one covers how to make a good realistic looking walk Cycle (I am working on this one now)
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-modeling-tutorials This is another good tutorial starting from smaller objects.
If you have any other questions we will gladly respond.
Here is a link to Scifi Funks latest animation they are done with Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/71155/loose-lips-cyberpunk-dystopia-3d-animation-made-with-carrara-and-the-octane-plugin-is-complete#latest
I think we were all typing at the same time.
Jinx, you are it.
For the price you cannot go wrong, even if you just used it to render Howies scenes.
they do take quite a long time though be warned
there are lots of fun things in it like particles, physics, metaballs as well as vertex and spline rooms
and a really cool underused nonphotorealistic renderer that uses paint strokes
Get the Pro version if you can, even if it costs you a little bit more. It's 64-bit, and has a bunch of features that are not available in the Standard edition. It's one of those things you'll regret not doing further down the road. You'll find that a lot of the assets you might have bought for Studio will work in Carrara with little to no effort (EXCEPT for Genesis 3, HD morphs and geografts, for which we are still waiting), and there's plenty of excellent native stuff in the store too (Howie Farkes you've already mentioned...)
Sure, you can point at any one thing and find another tool that will do it better (often for a *lot* more money), but you won't find a tool that does everything Carrara does. Heck, it's so good, the Italians even named a city after it, and gave it its own type of marble . . .
One other thing the Pro version is 64 Bit and the standard version is 32 Bit so get the pro version.
Queensland Australia also named a town after it
Due to Google browsing about Carrara Google thinks I live there.
Thanks for your comments, everyone. I guess it wasn't clear, but it would be Carrara 8.5 Pro I would be getting for $26.50...primarily to work with Maple Meadows, secondarily to do some modeling! I agree that the 64-bit and the increased feature set would be a good investment, insofar as $26.50 is an investment.
Carrara sounds like a way to dabble in dynamics, different types of modeling, volumetric lights, etc., without buying all separate programs. Intriguing...
I will definitely take a look at some of the modeling tuts and Carrara challenges [when I have more time this evening] to see what basics might be accomplished.
--MW
Whaaaat? Starting with B ending in r...not for processing food:)
. . . that's comprehensible to mere humans. :-p Bee-loaner or whatever needs a degree in sheer bloodymindedness to figure out. Actually, so does Carrararararara sometimes.
Lol, even if Cararra did not have modeling at all it should be still worth $26.50...
Modeling in Cararra is not bad at all for the price, tools can misbehave sometimes, but overall, expecially if you are beginner, they'll do the job
Just do it
Join us!
@ModernWizard - I think you have probably already made your mind up! Carrara is a fantastic program, the only full featured 3D suite that allows you to use Poser and Daz format content natively. It has a ton of features that are just there when you need them, without needing to buy add-ons. By and large, it meets my own modelling needs, the only thing I wouldn't use it for is complex organic modelling, but then I am lucky enough to have Zbrush for that. And as you say, lots of helpful people on this forum.
HI :)
this is a good goal to have,... but I'd expand that time period,. depending on your own modelling skills,,.
It's not so much a question of "are the tools available good enough",. as it is a question of the users skill and the abiilty to learn new skills.
For example,. If you had access to a lumber yard and a set of power tools,..
Could you build a house?,., and how long are you willing to spend learning the principles and techniques of construction ?
Yes,. The UI is nice and simple,. with some helpful "Wizards" for beginners to create a scene by selecting from different elements,
there are a bunch of helpful and knowlegeable folks here. .....ask questions. .....we'll help
there's a full function 30 day / Tral version available on CNET www.Downloads.com if you want to try it out before you buy.
For that price you can't go wrong.
I have opened a thread to tell how fun is to model in the vertex room of Carrara, very accurate, very professional, easy to render, the process to model may be not that easy but with some patience you can get some great models, and help is always available here, I have had some very useful input for friends here that have done my jobe easier, the which I am so thankful.
Cheers
Otto
At last - an explanatioin for my state of mind:) To see a Summa Cum Laude graduate in bloodymindedness, take a look at this http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?391108-The-Violator-Clown-amp-Demon-Digital-Sculpture
What kind of twisted mind could conceive this?
Seriously, though, at the price, Carrara is the best buy out there for rendering ready-made content. Daz content and that provided by vendors such as Howie Farkes' and our very own Tango Alpha, Dartenbeck, mmoir, etc. is probably the best you can get in the market.
All comes down to what you want in a 3d application; good value for money, but outdated; far better than Daz Studio, but falls far short of cutting edge applications.
What value can be placed on the community? Priceless:)
33 million vertices! Aye carumba!!
'taint nothin - I rendered this test scene - 9 billion verts - in like 5 mins on a i5, 8 gigs ram!
nice Island Roygee
Roygee - very nice, I like that you added sonme birds as well, a nice little touch that adds a lot of realism. If you wanted to take it further, you could use the Random Color function to add a little tonal variation between the trees.
Please explain - you have me intrigued.
@Roygee That's a gorgeous render. love it!. But was that 9 billion real verts or "equivalent" verts from replicated primitives - Carrara is certainly a lot more efficient on the latter.
If this was rendered in Carrara, you can use the free plug in from Sparrowhawke called Instance Randomizer:
http://sparrowhawke3d.com/InstanceRandomizerPage.html
I actually asked him to do this to address a feature that I had seen in other software but which Carrara did not have. I also did a tutorial when it was released:
My product Night and Day City uses this not only to change colours between instances, but also to turn on and off sections of the buildings, so that when duplicated, they look different each time!
On the other hand, if it was rendered in Octane, that has a function called Random Color, which does a similar thing. Set up a gradient and use the function to choose a color from that range for each instance.
I hope that helps!
Yep, very nice plugin, I asked him to can he make it work on surface replicator instances or even on individual polygons and he said carrara SDK does not allow for that yet
The way around the surface replicator issue is to duplicate an object within the replicator. Say you have a tree within a replicator with 1000 instances. Applying the Instance Randomizer to a gradient on the leaf color doesn't have any effect, because it still references the one tree object. But it does work with duplication, so select the tree and duplicate it a number of times. It is still very low memory overhead as each duplicated object references the original object, but if you have say 10 duplicates, you will get 10 different shades selected randomly from the gradient, with each being used around 100 times to make the 1000 total. Duplicate as many times as you need to get the degree of variation you need.
I love this plug-in. I use it for quick variations in background items all the time. In a recent render I needed a random looking wall of books for the background and used the randomizer to drive a simple dark grey to near-white color gradient. It took me literally 3-4 minutes to create this entire wall of books by just duplicating and scaling a cube, which looked pretty good as a background with some DOF on it to hide the lack of detail. If I hadn't been planning to apply an overall color tone to the image in post I could just as easily added a few points to the color gradient and made it generate a dozen or so different colors.
I take absolutely no credit for it - simply hit F12 to render. It is a benchmark test scene. If I had to set it up, I'd use a variety of XFrog trees - can even generate autumn shades using a random input and colour ramp.
9 Billion? I didn't actiully count them, but that is what the maker claims:) Obviously he used a replicator, which would account for the trees, so those must be virtual verts, but the very high poly terrain and sea account for a good few million.
I've been super busy lately and haven't been able to check in lately.
I consider myself a novice to intermediate vertex modeler, and I was able to box model this 'toon style Llama and then rig it, weight paint it, and use Carrara's 3D paint tool to texture it.