Modeling Objects in Carrara - Q&A - Come One and All

Diomede · January 2017

In general, once the extrude tool is activated from the top menu, use your mouse to left-click on the face of a polygon and drag your mouse.

Couple of things to keep in mind.

- the properties tray on the right will have a number of options to control the way the face (or faces) is extruded.

- if you select 2 adjacent faces, you can extrude them separately or together by deciding to check the "link polygon" box or not.

- if you hold down the ctrl (cmd on a Mac) button while dragging the mouse, then the extrude will be perpendicular from the object.

- if you hold down the shift key while dragging then the extrude will be in the same plane as original face.

wgdjohn · January 2017

Extrude is quite easy once you get the hang of it. Chose Dynamic Extrude icon and click on the end of the cylinder's poly and just drag the mouse or track ball. By holding down the Ctrl or Shift key you can contrain the extrusion in a straight extrusion... either in up from the poly and cylinder or accross away from the edge of the cylinder. DimensionT shows this in [Edit] Carrara Vertex Modeling Tutorial Part 1 ... if not there it's in part 2 I believe DimensionT removed these and other Carrara tutorials. "I'm now trying to be sure that what they contained are represented, explained, here or in other links to YouTube."

You can also select 2 different polygons, one on each side, and do your extrusion from one and the other will be mirrored. That way you could give your cylinder arms for instance.

Note... if your poly(s) are moving then the extrude button is off. Choose poly(s) first then the extrude button... then simply click on a choosen poly and drag with mouse in different directions... the poly will start from the center and as you drag mouse the extrusion will change depending on which direction you mouse is moved.

Make sense? Try this on a 2d poly or square or a 3d box to experiment. :)

IceDragonArt · January 2017

Great thanks so much! I am determined to get the hang of this lol. Not much time to really play as I am working overtime this week and my Saturday is booked from 6 am to about 9pm but hopefully, I can spend some time on this on Sunday. I can however, watch some of the videos while at work so I may get a head start on those.

TangoAlpha · January 2017

TabascoJack said:

FInal version of my shipping container. It served its purpose well as an educational exercise, in modeling, mapping, and texturing.

I learned a lot behind the scenes of what *not* to do next time.

It was kind of weird, bouncing between obsessing over trying to perfectly replicate a real world model (down to looking at schematics with precise measurements) and an attitude of "Meh, that looks OK...."

I'd like to find a middle ground. It would be a lot easier.......

"Meh that looks okay to three decimal places"?

Awesome looking container Now I shall put my Port Authorty (fictional) hat on, and ask, are the seals intact?

Add a half-container version and a few different liveries, and we can lego it into Diomede's fairground . . .

wgdjohn · January 2017

Problems: Polygon Naming and Shader Domain naming... A Confusion in progress... Now at a stand still.

Pic 1: Names of parts and showing problem areas.

1- left&right... claws 2- Head 3- Eyes 4- Horns
5- Thorax front. 6- Thorax rear 7- Garstor, back end ... All show problems with unselected polys.
8 & 9- Arms x2 at front & legs x6 behind those.

Pic 2: Simply a bottom view to show more unselected polys. Note that between the unselected areas there are 2 opposing areas which are selected... except for the tip of the tail which are also not selected... it's a 4 poly rounded square.area.

Pic 3: Here I first selected the entire object... then unselected all parts and used Invert Selection. I would appear that the problem areas might be considered part of the head??

When I first discovered a problem it was for the back end, Garstor. With it only selected I then choose the unselected polys and named it again to Garstor, back end, the same name as before. I then unselected the object and Selected, by Name, the Garstor again... no such luck... the same polys were once more unselected. I'm planning on doing the opposite for the head by un-selecting the polys shown in pic 3 and somewhat visible in other pics and naming them Head... and see what happens. While setting up the render for the last pic I viewed the object in Wireframe mode... lucky I did... I'd neglected to delete a path for one of the arms... it's now gone and new scene with object has been saved... hope it was the cause of my woes.

Questions:

How does Carrara treat the polyline(s) inbetween 2 or more adjacent polygons? As I understand it this is a shared line and that polygon(s) can be named differently for either side(s).
If you have named polygons and then extrude from one of them do the extruded polys retain the name of the original named polys or are they entirely new and require naming?
For the claws I used Extract Along about 3 times and then Extruded the center poly for each of the pairs, 4 times in all. Extract Along appears to create new unamed polys... being unamed the Extrude was also not named. Is that correct?
Does Double Sweep work on a filled poly or must it be an empty poly? I was unable to Double Sweep the end poly of the Extrude so instead copied it's 4 polylines and used it. Hmm... can't remember if I tried emptying the end polygon and using it... I was getting rushed.
The claws now ended up being another polymesh so I welded each to the extruded sections. I now encountered something strange, to me... Where I welded them I now had a creased ring of polylines. The strange thing is that I could not Smooth the lines. Is that normal or did I do something wrong? Early on when having the main body sections designed I turned Smoothing on at the right panel and set to 1 then choose Convert to creat more geometry... then turned smoothing off... don't believe that was the cause.
As I believe... polygon names have nothing to do with naming Shader Domains except for selecting polys to name for a domain. Right?
Finally... If I have a bunch of polys selected is there a way to then use Loop to select more? Am I overlooking a way to do this?

I've got more Shader Domain problems but will get to those later.

"Run for your lives... the Critter is coming."

TabascoJack · January 2017

TangoAlpha said:

TabascoJack said:

Awesome looking container Now I shall put my Port Authorty (fictional) hat on, and ask, are the seals intact?

Add a half-container version and a few different liveries, and we can lego it into Diomede's fairground . . .

Seals? What seals? I'm not sure how they got broken.....Nothing to see here, just move along.....

Since the bulk of the detail is in the doors, creating a 20 foot version would be a relatively simple matter.

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

is there a way to add a loop all around a selection like the tesselate tool but only one dirrection? as in divide the polygons in half horizontally as I tried using the line+ tool above my selection

wgdjohn · January 2017

TabascoJack said:

FInal version of my shipping container. It served its purpose well as an educational exercise, in modeling, mapping, and texturing.

I learned a lot behind the scenes of what *not* to do next time.

Kewl Kontainer! I'm constantly learning what *not* to do.

wgdjohn · January 2017

the3Ddigit said:

is there a way to add a loop all around a selection like the tesselate tool but only one dirrection? as in divide the polygons in half horizontally as I tried using the line+ tool above my selection

[ Edited for correctness ]

Not sure exactly what you mean but think I do. If you want to do more than 1 loop of polylines Extract Around is fasted menthod... this will create new lines horizontally in your pic above on each side of the polyline loops. I find it easiest to select Left or Right view... even better turn Wireframe view on to see what is selected. I also use Selection mode "line" so as not to select any polgons. My pic, shown later, shows the original and which lines to selec along with the result and a tesselated copy used for referece only. I don't know of a way or function that will do a half tessalate... so the reference copy is used to get the new lines very similar.

To select the lines you can loop select one and drag select the others... Then just choose Extract Around and drag select any one of the selected loops. Suddenly a line on each side should appear... just keep dragging until it's where you want the new loop copies... let go of the left mouse key and you have what you want, hopefully.

Extract Along can also be used for either one or more loops... however be careful not to select an entire group of lines at once which will also select the horizontal lines. Extract Along requires selecting one loop of polylines at a time. It's good to use Wireframe to be sure no unwanted lines are choosen. Note that the new Extract Along line seems to be in the opposite direction the mouse is dragged.

Is that what you wanted? Line+ tool and haven't learned to get along yet. :)

[edit] Just thought of something... Even numbers work good for Extract Around while an Odd number of sections will require Extract Along to complete all to be the same since one loop will still need to be done. Also if you want them divided close to what tessalate does just make a copy, not dupe, of the object and tessalate it to sit beside it for reference only... delete the copy when done.

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

wgdjohn said:

the3Ddigit said:

is there a way to add a loop all around a selection like the tesselate tool but only one dirrection? as in divide the polygons in half horizontally as I tried using the line+ tool above my selection

Not sure exactly what you mean but think I do. In your pic above I would select first loop a line around the object then use Extract Along and click on the loop and drag select it to move in the direction you want it to go. If you want each line to do that select them all, I usually enter Wire frame mode and Left or Right and just drag select all the lines I want,... the do the Extract Along and each will be repeated when you drag one of the lines/loops. Ooh... I use Selection mode Line so as not to accidentaly select a poly.

Is that what you wanted? Line+ tool and haven't learned to get along yet. :)

do not want to extract just subdivide but not into quarters as tessalate will and keep flat

wgdjohn · January 2017

the3Ddigit said:

wgdjohn said:

the3Ddigit said:

is there a way to add a loop all around a selection like the tesselate tool but only one dirrection? as in divide the polygons in half horizontally as I tried using the line+ tool above my selection

Not sure exactly what you mean but think I do. In your pic above I would select first loop a line around the object then use Extract Along and click on the loop and drag select it to move in the direction you want it to go. If you want each line to do that select them all, I usually enter Wire frame mode and Left or Right and just drag select all the lines I want,... the do the Extract Along and each will be repeated when you drag one of the lines/loops. Ooh... I use Selection mode Line so as not to accidentaly select a poly.

Is that what you wanted? Line+ tool and haven't learned to get along yet. :)

do not want to extract just subdivide but not into quarters as tessalate will and keep flat

That is what Extract Around does... it will run the new loops around the lines between them. You could also use Extract Along and probably do every other one... then go back and do the others.

Note that you can't use Extract Along for all polylines at one time for what you want. Fasted way is to do as above with Extract Around for every other polyline loops.

If you end up with a loop that needs a line between it and the next just use Extract Along to complete.

I'm updating the pic below and will replace it shortly.

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

thanks this looks like amuch easier way to do what I want as I was doing it the twiddly way tessalating then dissolving

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

I was confusing extrude with extract

wgdjohn · January 2017

Hah... sounds like something I'd do. :) I corrected my first reply as it was incorrect and have added a better explanation... I didn't have Carrara running at the time so didn't try some things I'd first mentioned.

diomede said:
- if you select 2 adjacent faces, you can extrude them separately or together by deciding to check the "link polygon" box or not.

Of course... "link polygon"... now I know what that is for. Too often I overlook all the options in the right side panel. Thanks for the screen shots.

Ice Dragon Art said:

[cut] hopefully, I can spend some time on this on Sunday. I can however, watch some of the videos while at work so I may get a head start on those.

I bookmark all the videos on my computer so that I can refer back to them... I'll try doing something from one and sometimes overlook an important step. It's easy to have Carrara running and crank up the video in the background. I've only listed one tutorial for each Carrara modeler.... check out thier YouTube channels for more videos. Cripeman has a lot which are very helpful for both Spline and Vertex modelers.

wgdjohn · January 2017

Problems2: Shader Domain naming... A Confusion in progress... Now at a stand still.

I suspect that my modeling problems listed above might have something to do with my selecting polys and giving them Shader Domains. Still I have a few questions about naming the Domains.

My problem is that the entire object was one colour and no matter what shader I set to a Domain name changed anything at all. Note that I created a bunch of shaders for each thing I wanted to have a different colour ahead of naming any domains.

First oddball thing I did was name a bunch of selected polys for different parts and then accidentally chose Add to name the selection I had... this is where I may have messed up... I neglected to choose the Yes button to add those to the addition. So I just deleted the addition selected Add agaiin and chose Yes this time. I did this in the Global tab as I usually do with no problem.

Only other different thing is that I set the same colour for default and Texture 0.

Later discovering that the entire object was only 1 colour I started moving/shifting shaders around. No luck having any shader domain names to change colour.

Then something very odd happened... 1 single poly on the head changed colour... the rest of the head remained the default colour. The poly that did show different was not any other domain name... quite strange.

Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Diomede · January 2017

Hard to know for sure, but it sounds like you may have inadverently left some polygons out of your shader domain creations. Definitely happens to me as models get more complex.

Initially, a model has all of its polygons assigned to shader domain "texture 0" or something like that. When you select and create new shader domains, new shader domains take precedence over old ones. Any polygons that have never been reassigned will remain assigned to texture 0. If you create three new shader domains, and the third overlaps with part of the first, then the overlapping polygons will be treated as part of the third, not the first. On rare occasions, I have inadvertently created a new shader domain that includes all of the polygons, thus overwriting every existing shader domain.

Not sure if any of those are what is happening to you. One way to try to diagnose is to enter the vertex modeler and use "select by" for your shader domains one by one, deselecting all imbetween. This should allow you to see which domains are still active.

EDIT: Very important! Select by texture 0 to see which polygons have not been assigned to your custom domains.

IceDragonArt · January 2017

wgdjohn said:

Hah... sounds like something I'd do. :) I corrected my first reply as it was incorrect and have added a better explanation... I didn't have Carrara running at the time so didn't try some things I'd first mentioned.

diomede said:
- if you select 2 adjacent faces, you can extrude them separately or together by deciding to check the "link polygon" box or not.

Of course... "link polygon"... now I know what that is for. Too often I overlook all the options in the right side panel. Thanks for the screen shots.

Ice Dragon Art said:

[cut] hopefully, I can spend some time on this on Sunday. I can however, watch some of the videos while at work so I may get a head start on those.

I bookmark all the videos on my computer so that I can refer back to them... I'll try doing something from one and sometimes overlook an important step. It's easy to have Carrara running and crank up the video in the background. I've only listed one tutorial for each Carrara modeler.... check out thier YouTube channels for more videos. Cripeman has a lot which are very helpful for both Spline and Vertex modelers.

Yes I am slowly working my way through the you tube ones. I usually run the video on my laptop and do the work on my pc as my monitor is a lot bigger on the pc.

wgdjohn · January 2017

diomede said:

Hard to know for sure, but it sounds like you may have inadverently left some polygons out of your shader domain creations. Definitely happens to me as models get more complex.

That is exactly what happened... I think... I know that there are some polys for the neck, originally back part of the head. which are now stuffed inside the head and will probably never have a shader domain name or get re-designed.

diomede said:

Initially, a model has all of its polygons assigned to shader domain "texture 0" or something like that. When you select and create new shader domains, new shader domains take precedence over old ones. Any polygons that have never been reassigned will remain assigned to texture 0. If you create three new shader domains, and the third overlaps with part of the first, then the overlapping polygons will be treated as part of the third, not the first. On rare occasions, I have inadvertently created a new shader domain that includes all of the polygons, thus overwriting every existing shader domain.

Not sure if any of those are what is happening to you. One way to try to diagnose is to enter the vertex modeler and use "select by" for your shader domains one by one, deselecting all imbetween. This should allow you to see which domains are still active.

EDIT: Very important! Select by texture 0 to see which polygons have not been assigned to your custom domains.

3DAGE had mentioned, somewhere, that he renames Texture 0 to something relating to the project name... I named it "Critter main". I just tried selecting by shader domain which I seldom do as they are the same as polygon names.... Critter main selects nothing. First shader I created was "body" for the head middle and end only... when it is selected everything except one poly on one side are selected... I've no Idea how it wasn't chosen. This is where it gets strange... all the other shader domains where named later so should have overwitten the body. When I get to the very last domain I set for "mouth" that 1 single poly is chosen and none for the mouth... so I just un-selected that poly and re-selected what I wanted for the mouth and then under Model tab set those to use mouth domain... no such luck still had the stray poly as mouth. Positive thing is that I found the polys/domains I'd not named which should have been where some legs joined the body. Luckily I saved before adding shader domains... now that I know where the problem areas lie I'll pay closer attention.

Thank so much... I now know how to use the Model/Shading Domain drop down and I did fix the mouth... Hooray!

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

I have discovered the ass room tells lies

in the vertex room I see the first image

in ass room second

Octane info channels reveals the truth (ignore the triangulated quads) third image

the softbody physics reacts to the actual mesh as I hoped fourth image

though not quite as well, I am still trying to acheive pleating on my tiers, an old personal challenge

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

actually update after posting this I found a ring of unused vertices from an empty polygon the ruled surfaces missed'

after deleting them the assembly room wireframe matches the vertex room

is really odd

WendyLuvsCatz · January 2017

it just gets odder

extract along does not show in assembly or Octane but it affects the bullet physics

another update, selecting it and adjoining loop and welding it shows

its seems things wait in limbo in the assembly room until you weld them

wgdjohn · January 2017

Tips: A few things I've learned.

Hiding Do's and Don'ts

When you select any polys to hide, especially an entire section, and hide those you also hide the polys between it and the rest of you model.
Never move visible polys attached to hidden polys. The hidden polys will remain in the hidden position. You can end up with stretched or overlapping parts of the model.
Don't name polys where hidden polys join thinking it will name those... it won't.
Hiding is very useful. Use it to temporarily get parts of the model out of the way so you can fine tune/edit others.

Move/Selection Tool quit working... What do I do?

I've found that clicking the Scale Tool and then clicking the Move/Selection Tool again often turns it back on. I've no idea why, yet, it quit working.
If that doesn't work then look in the right side panel and make sure you have the correct Selection Mode on. I often switch between Regular Selector and Line Selector.

Paint Selection Tool quit working

This happens to me a lot... why?... because I've used different methods to Zoom or Move the object around other than just the Rotate Tool. If you look down the Paintbrush isn't selected anymore. Just click on it... often you will have to click on the Move/Selection Tool and then click on the Paintbrush.

Ever Had Polys Selected and Accidentally click off of them and they are now de-selected?

Stop... just hit Ctrl-Z or Undo and they should be selected again.

Hermit Crab · January 2017

Good advice, John. Thanks for this thread to you and all the others keeping it going.

I have some renders of a project I never finished but have returned to after finding some new reference images. The project was begun almost two years ago using Hexagon. After a flurrry of activity I had a more-or less finished vehicle. It only needed some bits and pieces to be added.

Then, instead of finishing it, I started to build an engine and all the underside mechanicals - a full year later! My references weren't good enough so I gave up.

Now, another nine months later, I've started again. But now I have references for an interior also. It will probably never get finished at this rate but here are some shots anyway.

There are actually scores if not hundreds of parts in this model. Most of them are invisible in these shots and many bits and pieces are floating about still to be placed correctly. There is one wireframe shot of the old engine I gave up on.

(I show these with embarrassment because people made generous comments about what I had done before and I see so much great stuff being done all the time that I've failed to comment on. I'm guilty, all too guilty! Nevertheless, I hope that showing what I'm doing adds to the mix of things we're interested in. Thanks to all you great people for showing your works).

Hermit Crab · January 2017

Wendy, I like your fourth image. You could export that as an object a couple of times and remove the lowest layer. You could then scale that layer a little and make it fit under the other layers (or scale that layer inwards and extrude the top edge inwards before pushing it up under the layer above.

Or you could use the exported object in a further simulation - either as a new soft body or as a solid for another soft body to drape onto.

Needless to say I'm sort of guessing that some of these suggestions could work. I haven't tried!

PhilW · January 2017

TabascoJack said:

FInal version of my shipping container. It served its purpose well as an educational exercise, in modeling, mapping, and texturing.

I learned a lot behind the scenes of what *not* to do next time.

It was kind of weird, bouncing between obsessing over trying to perfectly replicate a real world model (down to looking at schematics with precise measurements) and an attitude of "Meh, that looks OK...."

I'd like to find a middle ground. It would be a lot easier.......

Great looking model!

PhilW · January 2017

Ice Dragon Art said:

I have a quick question on the extrude button. I keep seeing videos where they just click and another section pops into being. But no where does it say how they are making that happen? I can't figure it out, everytime I try to add another section, I just end up stretching things out or moving polygons instead of adding. I hope that makes more sense than it sounds to me lol.

for instance - if I make a cylinder and I want to add sections how does one just click and it does it?

You need to select the Extrude Tool in the Vertex Editor, then click on a face and move while holding the button down to extrude. Yiou can use Shift and Ctrl to extrude either parallel to or perpendicular to the face, which is very useful. Also check out the options in the right hand panel - in particular if you have multiple polys selected and try to extrude them, they will EACH extrude separately, unless you check the option to join them together and extrude as a group (can't look up the name right now but you'll recognise it!).

DesertDude · January 2017

the3Ddigit said:

I have discovered the ass room tells lies

Tee hee hee Wendy...I'm gonna be laughing in my head all day from this statement.

Great work everyone, and thanks wgdjohn, and everyone, for recording your intrepid investigations into Carrara's modeling secrets.

Hermit Crab · January 2017

Since I made a little progress today, I may as well show how the interior is shaping up.

Hermit Crab · January 2017

A view from below. Still to put in exhaust/manifold, prop shafts and other linkages and a number of details eg fuel tanks. But I've made a start on some of those bits.

Inside, a fire extinguisher, seat, pedals, levers, stowage boxes, steering wheel and instruments - I'm wishing I hadn't started making this list because it just grows...

I suppose I should take up the Hexagon thread again for this.

PhilW · January 2017

That looks great - and a lot of detail for few polys, looks to be very clean and efficient modelling, which is always admirable!

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