Which versions of Carrara Should I keep?
Jan_Scrapper
Posts: 351
I have several versions of Carrara from Carrara 5 Pro to now Carrara 8.5 Pro. I have beta versions of everything and Carrara Express.
I wished I had never started getting caught up on my purchase downloads. I am so very confused.
It is a lot to ask, however I am asking. Which version whould I keep, besides 8.5 Pro. I cannot find in the Carrara forums where an older version was better than Carrara 8.5.
I have only used Carrara to correct free 3ds models for my own use.
However, I might, one day, might want to learn the awesome stuff you guys do. Like actually rendering in Carrara. I use Poser, however I want to learn DS because I love Genesis3. So, DS is next to really learn.
Should I keep Express and the Beta versions.
I only have Carrara Pro 5 and Carrara Pro 8.5 installed.
Thank you so much, in advance, for helping with this.
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Comments
i would keep 8.5 - G3 does not work in any version of C . at this time !
At the moment I only have 8.5 Pro 64 bit installed. I'd get rid of all the Betas as well as Express... Be sure to have them on backup before uninstalling them! Since Carrara 4 Pro the only version I missed is 7 and wish I could still get it just to see what it offered and to have an earlier version to create objects in. If you want 2 versions I would also keep 6.2 Pro or possibly 7 Pro.
I use 8.5 Pro for rendering, animation and character rigging. DAZ Studio is very good but not for object design. It does have a lot of nice features but I consider it to be only for rendering a scene. It does have animation which I've heard it good. Problem DS is if using IRAY the rendering will take quite longer than Carrara. On my computer it takes about 2 hrs for one scene. Carrara can do the same in seconds or longer if very complicated. I like you I'm impressed with Genesis 3... problem is that G3 characters do not load into Carrara yet, it will crash, and have quit wasting money on them after M7 came out. I've had DS for quite some time but only started learning to use it since version 4.8 and stopped. Now my time is devoted to learning the many features that Carrara offers.
Check out the Carrara discussions in the Forums... also Carrara Challenges. If you wish I'll provide some links to interesting discussions. You can also go to YouTube and type in DAZ Carrara for a list of videos and tutorials.
Thank you so much for your answers, Bigh and Wgdjohn!!
I am trying to downsize my files. Backing up is chaos. If I don't need all of those Beta programs, I want to get them out of my backup files. I purchased Carrara Pro 8.5 for about $32 and Daz3d threw in all kinds of freebies.
I have so much to learn and am so excited about it.
Just correcting 3ds models and giving them different material zones has taught me so very much.
Sometimes parts of objects didn't import correctly and I may have to bend them or resize them.
Right now, I have a beautiful crown I am working on. If I import it into Poser and use the awesome material room, the crown is beautiful!! However, I don't want everything one color. This crown has been grouped together in about 8 different groups and some parts are flying all over the place.
I need to delete different parts of one group several different times, so that is a lot of cutting one facet at a time. So then, I thought I might see what Hexagon can do since I never got it out of the box! I can delete by selecting entire parts of the grouped objects.
I am very excited about watching tutorials. I love architecture, furniture, etc. I even love it in real life. My dream, in real life, is to learn how to use a router to make pretty edges. Well, I have imported furniture into Carrara and there are beautiful edges. That would be awesome to take a blank plane, resize it to a thick plane and then put a pretty edge on it. Then, I have a table top!! I have the ideas, I just have to learn how to do them!!!
Again, thank you so much!!
If you have the money I recomend the 2 packages from Infinate Skills
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-tutorial-video-11-5-hours-long-instant-digital-download
http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-carrara-techniques
Theyare really well done and you can learn lots of stuff that you may not have thought of and the Advanced one gets in to Modeling in Carrara including some furnature.
There is also one that helps with realism
http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-realism-rendering-training-video
PhilW on this form is the one who created them and is always willing to help as we all are.
You can also learn form the Carrara Challenges found at the following link.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45254/learning-tips-and-tricks-from-prior-carrara-challenge-wip-threads#latest.
If there are any questions just ask and someone will answer.
Ahah... I just happened to be very lucky, checked and grabbed 8.5 Pro for about $5 less... I was blown away at the price. It is quite a bargain even at $67 - 100+. When I first bought Carrara 4 Pro it was at $400+. Recently wrote DAZ/Carrara Support thanking them and mentiong a lot of plus features and my own support for the program.
All the videos chickenman mentioned I own but have only watched most of the first one and all of the last one. They are very well done and much easier to understand than the ones on the web.
If looking for good videos on the web a few names come to mind which have helped me enormously. Nearly all are Content Creators/Published Artists. These will also take you to others I've neglected to mention but have watched a lot of.
cripeman Modeling a barrel using the lathe tool.
dimensiont
Carrara Vertex Modeling Tutorial Part 1[edit] Doesn't seem to work anymore but feel to give it a try.Dartenbeck What Is Carrara - Intro
Age of Armor Carrara Multi-Channel Mixer Tutorial
HeatherEffect Indirect Lighting In Carrara Part 1
Making a round Table with a routered edge can be done easily. Insert a Vertex object and you will be whisked off to the Model room. Use the Lathe tool after drawing an outline for half of it. I believe how to do this is mentioned by dimensiont either in part 1 or 2 and by others also... it's not a table, I think it might be a wine glass.. the principle is the same.
Have fun modeling!
Thank you both so much!! I look forward to reviewing all of the links you provided!! I am so sorry I am just getting back to the thread.
Hi Jan :)
You can do modeling and editing in carrara's vertex modelller,. (double click a model) to edit it in the vertex modeller.
you can select by "parts" (Polymeshes) ,. or by name,(you can name Polymeshes, or selections of polygons).. or by "texture" (Shading domains)
if you double click on part of a model,. Carrara will select all connected polygons,.
You can also Loop and then use the + /- buttons on the right hand panel,. to increase or decrease the selected area,.
You would begin by going to the INSERT menu,. and selecting "Vertex object"
That will open up the Vertex modeller room,. and show the modelleign tools.
You could use the Polyline tools to create a basic shape like a rectangle, or a circle (for a table) , and then draw a profile of the bevelled edge shape using the polyline, and curve tools.
Select your bevel / profile shape ,. then go to the Modelling tools and select Sweep Path then click on the rectangle shape,. ..Carrara will sweep the bevel profile shape, aroung the rectangle to produce a beveled rectangle mesh.
pics to help
Hope that makes sense :)
3DAGE, Thank you so much. I am at work today, but want to try your tutorial. That is awesome!!
It is already a beautiful picture frame!! I hope I can do that. I can hardly wait to get home and try!
You know, the one thing I keep thinking is, if modeling were easy, everyone would do it!! It isn't easy.
I love all of the purchases I have made in the last 11 years and all of the awesome freebies. 3d model land is most generous, lovely people!!!
Internet is really kind of expensive where I live, so once in a while I have to live without it for periods of time - so I like to keep local versions of all of my stuff.
My Carrara 6 Pro disc has some nice stuff on it that doesn't show up in my Product Library, so I've copied that whole disc into this storage system as well. It's fun to go through the sample HDR and other complimentary files from time to time.
More, I'm often tempted to purchase older boxed versions of Carrara to keep in my office for nostalgia purposes ;)
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Oposite your initial posting, I use Carrara as my main workhorse. I enjoy anomating and setting up scenes, characters and props for these animations and have been spending a lot of time building up my Carrara browser with my optimized Carrara files and I just love it!
I actually gulped when I looked at your art!! Of course each is so very awesome!!! Since I am a dystopia theme nut, I love that piece. However, since I am a woman, your second piece is amazing!! Is that Carrara hair? The few things I know about Carrara, which are so limited, it is amazing!
You are taking it to the next level.
So, you guys do your scene in DS then save and open up in Carrara?
Lovely work!!!
Gosh... did I start out wrong after adding the vertex object. First I instead dropped a filled rectangle dropping it, unfilled it and rescaled it to be rectangular. On my 2nd or 3rd try it began to look fairly similar. Or perhaps I did follow them correct. Thanks for the instuctions.
Just now realized that you could creat a table edge which is curvy using the same method.
HI Jan
not really. :)
I do all my work in Carrara,. (modelling, texturing, rigging, and animating) I only use DS on rare occasions, or for a specific feature, such as the transfer utility.
Although Carrara can import DUF files from DS,. it's not intended as a main workflow.
you should use Carrara to set up your scenes in Carrara,. that way you learn more about carrara,. rather than using it as a final rendering tool for DS scenes.
most shaders imported from poser and DS also require some tweaking in Carrara to make them render better,. since Daz3d don;t provide Carrara shader options their products,. carrara users need to adjust shaders to work correctly in Carrara.
You can load most of the Daz3D and Poser figures and props directly into Carrara from the content browser.
Thank you:)
No, I don't. I do all of my work in Carrara, for the most part.
Yes, that's Carrara's dynamic hair! :) It took a long time to get it like that, and I still can't use it in my animations because the curls screw with it too much... but... yeah... I really think Carrara hair looks fantastic!
The figure is Victoria 4.
Oh... right... exactly as 3dage said it above....
This is the hair I use for my animations. I'm using Angelina Hair by Goldtassel
But I've used Carrara to hide the feathers and the head band and change the scalp, since the headband isn't there anymore. After saving those changes to my Carrara browser, I added another copy to V4 and, with the modeling tools, made it fuller and longer to compliment the original, then did that again. So there are three copies of my edited Angelina Hair on this V4 figure.
Same hair setup on a Genesis 2 Female version of the same character, but I'm still using V4 instead