CarraraCafe forum upgrade plans

CarraraCafe forum upgrade plans

Holly Wetcircuit has posted about the new forum upgrade plans, here is the original thread if you want to join the discussion:

In the next weeks I’ll be launching the new section of the Cafe, with better forums, groups, and galleries.

No old posts are being deleted from THIS forum, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to export old posts to the new forum…. We are still looking for a way to port them, but it’s possible we will be forced to start clean. I would like to keep the old forums for a topical “knowledge base” so we can organize tutorials by subject (something that has already been happening…)

The new forum allows for sharing files (.zip will download automatically, .car and ,cbr will have to be “saved” to disc as browsers don’t know what they are and try to open them as a text string… working on a way to force those to download), naturally we can embed videos and pics, also tagging other members in a post, full formatting, forum topics can be labeled as “answered”…, and everything else you’d expect for a real forum.

The new galleries allow privacy settings, so you could create a sub-gallery only to share with “friends”, or to keep private.

There are Groups which contain their own discussion forums (hopefully we can provide a home for some longterm group projects, as well as specialized knowledge groups like for Unity users etc…).

There are Profiles which some may want to use that work sort of like Facebook. If you enter your location you may be able to find other members in your area…., and be notified when someone tags you in a forum post…. Also private messaging.

Basically there is a lot of promise to be more than *just* another Carrara forum. DAZ 3D has paid for a software upgrade to help get this rolling. Everything is being tested, but the cosmetics will be changing as I can dig into the options a little better.

You won’t need to re-join, it will work with your existing profile. I’d love to try to organize some hosted topics and a freebie drive to help build traffic and get people interested…. With Carrara in limbo a while between versions there hasn’t been a lot of traffic here or there…. I’d like to try to change that.

Added download mirrors for YAToon plugin and Mimic Pro manual

Added download mirrors for YAToon plugin and Mimic Pro manual

The bad news is that the YAToon site is offline, but the good news is that CarraraCafe mirrors all the versions of the freeware toon rendering plugin for Carrara, both for PC and Mac.
Also, the manual for Mimic Pro plugin for Carrara is now mirrored here, it got lost in the upgrade the the new DAZ 3D site.
Also, some watermarks have been added, when you want to show what software was used to render.
Thanks to Jay_NOLA for providing the files.
Get them all on the Downloads page right here: https://carraracafe.com/downloads/

TurnMiku22

Carrara Skies Lightdomes 2 now in store, 50% off on release day

Carrara Skies Lightdomes 2 now in store, 50% off on release day

Tim Payne is back with an update of his previous item and on the release day an amazing 50% off with the March Madness sale.
Here are the details from Tim himself:

I’m getting back into content creation, and I’m really happy to finally be presenting Carrara Skies Lightdomes 2 – all the great features of the first volume, but with a much wider range of lighting colors. Whether you’re rendering alien worlds, ancient adventures, future dystopias, or portraits of your favorite characters, CSLD2 makes it really easy to get great lighting results.

Carrara Skies Lightdomes 2 includes two perfectly matched sets of light rigs – one for use with, and the other without, Carrara Skies Volume 2. Two sets of light rigs are necessary because an atmosphere dims and tints far away lights. Each light rig has three lightdome quality options so you can pick the ideal balance of speed and quality for your scene.

The colors of these lightdomes are far more natural than the Skylight GI produced by Carrara’s Realistic Sky, and with the light rigs’ bounce and ambient components you get results that look similar to Indirect Lighting, but in a fraction of the time.

For complex scenes, these lightdomes can render faster than comparable Skylight global illumination, and they use less memory too. They won’t always be faster – it really depends on what kind of objects and shaders are in the scene – but in many cases they will be.

Another really cool advantage of these lightdomes over conventional global illumination is that they produce specular reflections. The colors and intensities of the individual lights in the dome is controlled by the actual colors of the sky, and this provides a subtle and very realistic approximation of blurry environment reflections on shaders with high specularity. Renders won’t look flat like they so often do when rendered with IBL or HDRI.

Get it at: http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-skies-lightdomes-2

csld2

Massive March Madness sale of Carrara items at DAZ3D

Massive March Madness sale of Carrara items at DAZ3D

Todays March Madness sale at DAZ3D.com is the biggest for Carrara yet. Not only is Carrara 8 Pro itself on sale for about 120$ for PC members, but also the stores of Tim Payne and Howie Farkes are half off when you get at least 2 items.

March Madness items change daily, so act quick:
Carrara 8 Pro: http://www.daz3d.com/catalog/product/view/id/10608/s/carrara-8-pro/category/1436/

Tim Payne’s store: http://www.daz3d.com/tim-payne/

Howie Farkes store: http://www.daz3d.com/howiefarkes/

More March Madness deals: http://www.daz3d.com/sales-promotions/

These Forum thread are updated on a regular basis with Carrara items:

https://carraracafe.com/forum-2/general/march-madness-2013-carrara-items/

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/18074/

mm

New V4 Bikini texture set released with Carrara shader support – JeansMania. Freebie included.

New V4 Bikini texture set released with Carrara shader support – JeansMania. Freebie included.

Our resident artist/vendor/administrator GKDantas has just released a new V4 Bikini texture set called JeansMania, with Carrara shader support.
Unlike other texture sets, you get support for Poser, Daz Studio and Carrara, with unique extra shaders for Carrara.
You need V4 and Basicwear for V4, both are included for free with Carrara 8 Pro (not sure about C8 non Pro).
More details at Renderosity: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/jeansmania-for-v4-bikini/98136/
A freebie single bikini set with Carrara shaders can be downloaded from here: http://www.euqfiz.com.br/2010/jeansmania-freebie/

 

JM