Ranger- portrait by moviehawke

Ranger- portrait by moviehawke

by | Aug 4, 2012 | Best of 2012

A variation on my previous render – Ranger.

Thanks for having a look.
Comments always appreciated.

Character face morph is Riley by Mihrelle.

Posed and rendered in Carrara, post in PS/CS4.

Allen/Moviehawke

[ratings]
Storage Shed by CoolArtDude

Storage Shed by CoolArtDude

by | Aug 3, 2012 | Best of 2012

 

Seeing as I have always sucked at lighting I decided to buy a few tutorial sets so I could learn to use and understand lights, and not rely on other peoples pre made light sets 🙂

Judging by this image, I need a lot more work 🙁

[ratings]
Summer by Antaran

Summer by Antaran

by | Aug 3, 2012 | Best of 2012

This image has an interesting history: It was inspired by the works of 2 very talented Carrara artists: Sopher’s macro-photography-like images, such as this one:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2347567§ion_id=6&page=2&np

and Kixum’s “Dandelion Seeds” image:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2342381§ion_id=6&page=4&np

As you can probably guess, the later one gave me the inspiration for the subject matter: I mostly got curious about what would happen if I decided to use Carrara’s Dynamic Hair for the seeds to simplify creation of unique-looking seeds (could easily be done by altering Hair shader’s Frizz, Kink and Wave properties as well as thickness) — I find those changes easier to make then altering textures and saving out dozens of images. So I wanted to see how it will look…

Then there came the RuntimeDNA’s monthly challenge with a very interesting technical restriction of only using one light, so I remembered Sopher’s images and thought that I could use the dandelion I was modeling as my experimentation ground for lighting scenes with one light.

The technical part of the lighting was also fun: I wanted both back-lighting for the hair and front lighting for the flower without too many shadows, and I’ve set an extra restriction for myself to not use IDL here, so I used a shape light (a torus) and some base ambiance and did the rest with shaders and actually blocking out some of the torus’s light. It was somewhat funny that being restricted with using one light only, I actually found myself having too much of it :)…

Also, it was very hot this month (and especially during the week when I was working on this), so I wanted something to feel good about the summer. This is my most cheerful take on the season :).

This image, despite its simplicity, actually was one of the winners and placed second in the challenge, which came as a surprise, given this particular challenge’s unusually large participation numbers and the sheer stunning beauty of so many of the other entries.

This image is also somewhat a “first” for me, because it was entirely made from scratch: I modeled all the elements, painted all the textures and created all the shaders form the basic default. Nothing to brag about since everything was so basic and simple, and it did not change my overall opinion that using this DIY workflow for anything more complex is inefficient and redundant. It’s just another “unusual” point in this image’s description.

[ratings]
CARRARA 8.5.0.132 is the latest Beta Build!

CARRARA 8.5.0.132 is the latest Beta Build!

by | May 7, 2012 | News

If you own Carrara 8, we will add this new build to your account. You can run the production build of Carrara 8.1 side by side with this Beta build. Just don’t uninstall 8.1 version when you install this beta release.

The purpose of providing this build is for you to see the progress we are making, see how Genesis looks in Carrara, see the new features we’ve added and provide input on the changes. You can also see the list of bug fixes below. This list identifies issues that were logged in the bug tracker and highlights many of the other fixes in this build.

New in Carrara 8.5:

1. Support for imported Genesis .dsf files (best used with DAZ Studio 4.0.3.19 or newer installed).
2. Character presets can be applied. Go to the Instance Tab, select the 2nd Genesis listed in the tree or the Actor line, and double click the character from the list. If the one of these items is not selected, an additional figure will be loaded with that character applied.
3. New Parameters Pane and user experience
4. Carrara 8.5 Parameter Pane. If you are familiar with the Parameters Tab (with the Genesis figure) in DAZ Studio 4, the equivalent to Carrara 8.5 is the Parameter Pane which is accessed by selecting the second Genesis from the list.
5. Shaping in Parameters Pane. If you are familiar with the Shaping Tab in DAZ Studio 4, the equivalent for Carrara 8.5 can be accessed by selecting the Actor line from the tree in the Instance Pane.
6. Content Management System or CMS connection to utilize the DAZ Studio database (requires DAZ Studio 4.0.3.19 or newer recommended to be installed). We are looking into a project to install the CMS for Carrara without the need of DAZ Studio. So for the Carrara customers not using DAZ Studio they can still take advantage of the new system. More information will be coming.
7. AutoFit is included in Carrara 8.5
8. Fit To (auto generates Genesis morphs) for Genesis designed clothing
9. Restore Figure tools
10. Memorize tools
11. Zero Figure tools
12. Smart Content Tab (shows all the content with meta data organized similarly to DAZ Studio’s Smart Content Tab)
13. New SubD / Smoothing tool (display the smoothing slider of smoothed vertex object in the assemble room)
14. Improved Bullet Physics for soft body simulation
15. aniBlock importer has been updated and fixed for Carrara 8.5
16. Mac OSX Lion support has been implemented
17. Geo grafting has been implemented and we continue to work on this feature
18. New Light Icons to better represent the lights, the controls have also been improved.
19. DUF Files from DAZ Studio are now supported in Carrara 8.5 however, DUF material presets do not always apply textures to the selected figure.

If you are seeing issues please log the bugs in the bug tracker: DAZ BUG Tracker

Changes since the last beta build include:

DSF : Fixed #0045588 : Fixed transparent material issue
DSF : Fixed #0045528 : Fixed old character preset format loading
DSF : Fixed #0045786 : Fixed cloth loading on existing figure
DSF : Fixed #0045588 : Fixed transparent material issue
DSF : Fixed : Fixed file matching issue when two paths point to the same file on the disk
DSF : Fixed #0045528 : Fixed old character preset format loading
DSF : Fixed #0045961 : Added support for hrz and hr2 props for Genesis.
DSF : Fixed #0046155 : Fixed thumbnails issue
Carrara : Fixed #0046012 : Fixed crash with free form primitive
Carrara : Fixed #0042522 : Fixed shadow catcher accuracy problem
Carrara : Fixed #0046012 : Fixed crash with free form primitive
3DPaint : Fixed #0045916 : Fixed visible bone when painting on a skinned object
3DPaint : Fixed #0045724 : Fixed tablet tracking major issue
3DPaint : Fixed #0045916 : Fixed visible bone when painting on a skinned object
3DPaint : Fixed #0045724 : Fixed tablet tracking major issue
3DView : Fixed #0038654 : Added saving for 3d view pane part settings (camera, zoom, pan…)
Mac : Fixed #0039286 : Fixed nudge shortcut issue on the Mac
VertexModeler : Fixed #0045843 : Fixed crash with mesh subdivision

What you need to know about this build:

Note: We continue to work on Genesis compatibility. In the coming releases we are planning on adding presets for materials, poses and UV’s.
1. The new V5 products will be reset in your account to allow these items to work properly in Carrara 8.5.
2. Pz2 material Presets do work on Genesis and Triax Content, to include content that has been auto-fit to Genesis now.
3. PZ2 Poses do apply to Genesis but it is not recommended and if the pose has translations on the feet or hands those will need to be zeroed.
4. DAZ Studio 4.0.3.19 must be installed prior to running Carrara 8.5 in order to use Genesis or the Smart Content Tab.
5. If new content with meta data is installed, DAZ Studio will need to be started in order to get the smart content into the CMS database.
6. V4/M4/K4 shaders will not work on Genesis and will have to be manually built.
7. Posing Genesis must be done manually, for now there is no way to apply a pose preset to Genesis.
8. Order of morphs listed in the Carrara Parameters Tab is not consistent with the way it’s displayed in DAZ Studio.
9. Our development team is working on the tools to transfer data from DAZ Studio 4 to Carrara using our new file format.
10. Included Tree presets may not look the same as they did in Carrara 7, we are looking into this currently.
11. IK is having some issues with posing the Genesis figure.
12. Mimic fixes have been implemented for Gen 4 and earlier.
13. Mimic and Mimic Pro for Genesis is fixed and will be made available to those who have purchases this.

This build will be added to your account by the DAZ 3D Customer Support Team. It will take time for all the updates to happen, so please be patient.

To register the Carrara 8.5 Beta you will need to use the serial code listed here: CDZCPRO-085-0000053-MNL-001-EBTOLEX (Expires May 25th 2012)

If you would like to get to know Carrara 8 without purchasing right now, you can obtain a download for a 30 trial version at this site: Download Carrara 8 Trial Version

To follow the discussion use DAZ 3D forums HERE.

Creating cloths for Poser

Creating cloths for Poser

by | Apr 4, 2012 | Cafe Articles

Carrara now will talk to Daz Studio with a new file format that DAZ 3D is testing, so its time to add Daz Studio to our new arsenal of tools. You can use it as more then a simple pose and render tools, but as a content creator tool!

Here is a collection of Daz Studio 4 PRO videos that can help you to start creating cloths for you own models.
Note that they dont show how to model the mesh, if you want to learn more about modeling get the basic video tutorials Genesis Start Kit from Fugazi1968 at DAZ 3D store:

https://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/genesis-starter-kit?item=14104

The first video will show you how to import and copy the RIG from a character to you new piece of cloth, using the Transfer Utility:

Now that you have your cloth in place we need to setup so we dont get pokes in the objetcs and morphs with Mesh Smoothing Modifier:

Note that all morphs dynamically added to the cloth will not show in the Parameters tabs, unless you tick the Show Hidden Properties.
Other point is that you need to dial all morphs that you want create, so they will be part of your cloth to work in Carrara or Poser.
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