First CarraraCafe contest!

First CarraraCafe contest!

Yes we will start the new site with a simple contest: create a Logo for us and win a $ 75 voucher from DAZ 3D!

All you have to do is create a logo for www.carraracafe.com and you can win this voucher. The contest is open to any registered user and you dont need to use Carrara to create the logo. Take a tour in the site and think about something that could represent our new User Group here, just have in mind that this is just the beginning, more things will come, like personal galleries and groups. So free your mind and draw a logo for www.carraracafe.com.

The judgment will be done by DAZ 3D staff, and only one will be chosen.

The rules are simple:

1 – Use a vector software, so we can use the logo anywhere, with any size.
2 – Send the logo in JPG first to contact@carraracafe.com with your real name and user name.
3 – You need to have a valid account at Daz3D to receive the prize.

We will open a post to show all logos that we have received. So stay tunned!

The deadline for this contest is (to be announced).

Send your created logos and have fun!

Fenric

Fenric

Name: Ted

I’m an Enterprise Software Architect, whose been programming since my Dad brought home a TRS-80 way back at the beginning of third grade… But I’ve always loved art – drawing, painting (oil), and of course CGI. I started dabbling with POV-Ray before it was cool Very Happy ‘course, back then, my dabbling was writing x86 assembly routines to speed up the renderer… Programs most used: Carrara, Photoshop CS3, XCode, Visual Studio Programs I have access to: DAZ Studio (free, not Advanced), Poser 7, Hexagon 2.5 , Bryce 5.5 Other Programs: GIMP, Paint.NET (though only the older version that came with source and supports my Tablet PC), Blender (but ARGH) Favorite Style of art to do: Anthropomorphic “Furry” art, particularly foxes. Best advice for new people: If at first you don’t succeed, try something else. Doing the same thing repeatedly won’t change the outcome – experiment!

 

Pose and Shading Tools 2

Here is a set of new Carrara features that are sure to be a hit! Included are two new commands, a new tweener, and three shaders to spice up your artwork:

Pose Transfer Command

Stack Tweener

Clear Timeline Command

TowardAway Shader

Color Balance Shader

Color Separation Shader

Color Merge Shader

Buy now!  

Carrara Enhanced Remote Control

The Enhanced Remote Control suite is a set of behavior modifiers and scene commands that work together to add much needed functionality and control to your animation workflow. It provides the basic functionality of Poser’s ERC for creating joint-controlled movement within Carrara. But it also provides so much more, giving you the building blocks to rapidly create advanced, realistic animation.

Control them all: Shaders, light values, position, rotation, morph settings – even other modifiers!

Commands:

Add ERC Modifier

Create ERC Chain

Add Pin Modifier

Delete Keyframes

Remove Duplicate Keyframes

Jitter Keyframes

Change Morph Limits

Property Explorer

Modifiers:

Pin

ERC

Buy now!  

Pose Helper for Carrara

Have you finally set up the perfect pose, only to realize she’s facing the wrong way? Change your mind about which hip that hand should be resting on? Ever wish you could just bend all of the joints in that tail the same amount when there’s no Easy Pose to fall back on?

Now you can. With the Pose Helper for Carrara, you finally have the ability to swiftly and easily make these changes and many more!

Left / Right Pose Symmetry based on scene element names

Morph Zeroing

Pose Zeroing

Rotation Setting

Scale Zeroing

Scale Setting

General Scene Option Setting

Full undo/redo support

Works on content, native figures, and groups of primitives

Works across multiple figures and groups

Buy now!  

BVH/PZ2 Exporter

The Poser Pose Exporter plugin adds a new dimension of compatibility between Carrara and other Poser compatible software packages. This plugin adds the ability to export Poser Pose (PZ2), Animated Poser Pose (PZ2), and Poser-compatible BioVision animation data (BVH) from a single, easy to use function.

  • Exports Static Poser format Pose File (PZ2)
  • Exports Animated Poser format Pose File (PZ2)
  • Exports Poser compatible BioVision Animation File (BVH)
  • Configurable Operation
    • Choose whether to include or exclude:
      • Overall Motion (global translation)
      • Joint Rotation
      • Morph Dial Settings
      • Joint Scaling (independent X, Y, and Z parameters)
    • Configure start and end frame range for animated poses
Buy now!

Ivy generator

I’m wrapping up development on my latest project – a port of Thomas Luft’s “Ivy Generator” to Carrara. I’ve put together a little Q&A for you guys:

Q: What is it?

A: It is a scene command plugin that grows an ivy-like plant on an object. It includes shaders.

Q: How much will it cost?

A: Nothing. It will be available from ShareCG, and will include source code

Q: How does it work?

A: 1. Set your scene options to display three decimal places (yes, really).

2. Pick an object with renderable geometry

3. Move the Hot Point of the object to the place where you want the ivy to start

4. Choose “Generate Ivy“.

5. Review and adjust the ivy settings, click OK

6. Watch progress bars

7. Adjust scale and position if needed (it should be close).

8. “convert to other modeller”, vertex object (or else it won’t render properly).

Q: What sorts of objects will it work on

A: – primitives

– splines

– metaballs

– vertex objects

– terrain (but not very well)

Q: What sorts of objects will it NOT work on

A: (Seriously… don’t do it – these crash Carrara) – fire

– clouds

– ocean

– fog

– lights

– cameras

– target helpers

Q: Does it animate?

A: No

Q: I mean: can you animate the ivy growing?

A: No

Q: Can I go back to an object later and grow the ivy more?

A: No

Q: Can I have a description of what the ivy settings do?

A: This will be provided in a readme with the plugin.

Know more ate Daz3D forums:

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=149552&highlight=ivy+generator

Download!

Poser Weight Map Injector

This is a pair of utilities to facilitate importing weight-mapped Poser figures into Carrara. This is a multi-step process, and is not guaranteed to work for every figure.

Requirements: Weightmapped Poser figure like Miki4 or TylerGND, Poser Pro 2012 SR2 and Carrara 8 (unknown if earlier Carrara versions are supported)

Download

 

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Kevin Wyeth

Kevin Wyeth

Kevin Wyeth
Kevin Wyeth Carrara Artist
Fortunately I  heard about Carrara 5 and its lineage, so I felt fairly comfortable  “upgrading” from RayDream to Carrara. A couple years later, I  upgraded to C7 Pro and haven’t looked back.

I was born in Illinois through no fault of my own. My parents soon came to their senses and moved to Wisconsin when I was twelve. I was home schooled by my parents who made me and my seven brothers walk three miles to school every day. While this didn’t exactly make sense, it instilled in me a deep seated drive to achieve a marginal level of mediocrity.

My first experience with showing artwork was through 4-H. The highlight of this was in 1986 when I had an ink-wash selected to be displayed at the UW Madison, along with artwork from other 4-Hers from across the state.

Since that time, I have dabbled in various mediums as an amateur, while slowly and steadily migrating towards electronic media. My first experience with computer based artwork was with an Amiga my father had through work, and a program called Deluxe Paint. Years later as an adult, I bought a Mac and RayDream Studio 5. I used that until computer and OS upgrades made it very unstable. Fortunately I heard about Carrara 5 and its lineage, so I felt fairly comfortable “upgrading” from RayDream to Carrara. A couple years later, I upgraded to C7 Pro and haven’t looked back.

I’ve used some other programs through the years, including earlier versions of Poser and Bryce, but felt that they were somewhat limited. They each had features I wanted — realistic humans from Poser and realistic terrains from Bryce. Neither one worked well together, especially if you were a novice. More advanced software like C4D, Maya, etc. were both beyond my skill level and my budget, and  Raydream was getting a bit rickety. I saw Carrara as a godsend and a bridge to what I wanted to do. Carrara had the tools I was familiar with from Raydream, the terrain and atmospheres I wanted from Bryce, the realistic humanoids from Poser and some of the high end features found in C4D and Maya, such as rigging, complex shaders and more advanced lighting capabilities.