New plugin – Triplanar by Philemo
for more information and download link see here -> https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/166396/new-plugin
You can also look here -> https://sourceforge.net/projects/carrara-time-savers/
A big day for the PC industry today and officially on 2nd March 2017, the AMD Ryzen 8-core CPU’s are officially presented today, ready for pre-order now and delivery on 2nd March 2017.
After 10 years of quad cores for <1000$/CPU due to Intel monopoly, AMD is finally back with AMD Ryzen 7 series (1700/1700X/1800X) for 300-500$ that beats the >1000$ Intel Core i7 6900k in Cinebench R15, the benchmark most similar to Carrara.
Finally!!!
AMD Ryzen 7 1700X – $399 Cinebench R15 – 1537
Intel Core i7 6900k – $1049.99 Cinebench R15 – 1474
You can find your CPU Cinebench score here: http://cbscores.com/ or try Cinebench yourself: https://www.maxon.net/en/products/cinebench/
Intel quad cores score 800-900 so a nice speed up of twice as fast for the same money.
Or less than half the price for the same speed, since Intel sells its expensive mainboards only with their 6 and 8-core CPU’s…
All AMD Ryzen 7 CPU’s can be overclocked, so there is even more speed available since they are rated for 95W while Intel is running 140W, but we need to wait for some official reviews on 2nd march to see exactly how much more.
A review round-up: http://wccftech.com/amd-ryzen-7-review-roundup-official-launch-coverage/
The official AMD launch video:
Pre-orders:
Philemo has been busy with creating useful plugins for Carrara lately. This time it is the NoPokethrough plugin for Carrara, that had a free alpha version some time ago, but has now timed out while we wait for an official release at a Carrara content store. So what is it exactly? Philemo explains:
It’s a modifier you can apply on any figure or prop that removes poke through. It also creates morphs so that you don’t have to do the computation every time you do something.
Morphs are keyframed and you can add different ones for different situations (a poke through created by a particular posture).
Latest status update by Philemo from 2016 November:
I’ve added a lot of features since and I’m slowly debugging it (while refraining to add more features 🙂 ). Once done, I have to compile and test for OSX and I’ll be ready to release a beta version.
So how does it work?
Add “No PokeThrough general utility” modifier to the actor or model of the cloth. You can have as much as you need (one initial, another one for cloth on cloth situation, other dedicated to a particular posture that isn’t solved by the initial one).
Target : Object to check against. Often, it’s the figure wearing the cloth, but not necessarily. Can be other clothes (cloth on cloth poke through), a prop or whatever you can intersect with. It’s better be the instance (model or actor, not the figure or a group, unlike the example). I can’t figure out why, but the intersection works better.
Distance from body : minimum distance to body. Default to 0.1 inch (2.54mm)
Dynamic : If ticked, collision solving is done whenever necessary. As it can take from 0.1 seconds, up to 2 or 3 depending on complexity, use it sparsily before creating a morph (because whenever necessary maybe quite often :-))
Morph name. Name that will be used for storing morph into the model. Will be corrected if necessary for unicity.
“Create” button : create the morph
“Update” button : update the morph offsets (resolve collision again)
Morph value : coefficient of the morph (as in parameter tab).
“Delete” button : delete the morph
This video by Philemo both explains how to use the NoPokethrough plugin for Carrara and also shows a second step-by-step method that results in better morphs:
The DAZ3D forum post with more info and hopefully some news soon:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/67410/nopokethrough-plugin-alpha-version-available-for-testing/p1
The monthly Carrara contest with prizes of up to 100$ is open for entries at the DAZ3D forums.
More info and WIP contributions at: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/147136/carrara-challenge-31-music-for-my-eyes/p1
The challenge this month is to create an image Based on Music
– The intent is to make a image representing music for you.It could be an image of a band like Black Sabath, The Clash, Men With Out Hats, Josie and the Pussy Cats, It could be and individual playing in a Bar such a local talent or someone like Lenard Cohen. How about Boy Goerge or any of the newer performers. It could also be a portrait of them performing.
The intent is to allow some of the newer users to Carrara to create and display thier artwork from Carrara
– Feel free to interpret the theme broadly.
Basic rules will be:
1. – Participants must use the Carrara to set up and render the Image.
2.- Must be Musically based.
3 – Modeling an object is not required but if you have ths skills or desire give it a whirl.
4.- Postwork is allowed, but must not be the highlight of the image.
5.- Images must be new (previously unpublished).
6 – Images must be rendered in Carrara or in an external renderer for which there is a Carrara plug-in (e.g. LuxRenderer, Octane).
7 – At least one WIP (work in progress) image must be posted to the WIP thread.
8 – Screen shot of the scene in Carrara to be included in WIP
9 – Each participant may submit up to 3 images into the Challenge.
Please note, there is no requirement for the winner to host the next challenge, unless they want to.
We love our wonderful sponsors heartheartsmiley
Once again Daz will generously sponsor the monthly challenge with the following prizes:
1st Place: $100.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
2nd Place: $ 50.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
3rd Place: $ 25.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s)
Honorable Mention (4th place): $10.00 towards DAZ 3D owned item(s) ( may be used for best new comers).
Dates to Remember:
WIP Thread Opens: Tuesday 7 Feb 2017
Entry Thread Opens: Sunday 5 March 2017
Entry Thread Closes/Voting Begins: 12.00 Midnight Eastern Sunday 12 March 2017
Voting Ends: Sunday 19 March 2017
As with the last challenge because we are having up to three images an entrant we WILL judge the winner by their scores combined. ie if their image 1 gets 24 votes, their image 2 gets 12 votes, and their image 3 gets 12 votes then they score 48.
2nd and third and HM would be as per usual – ie based on votes for one image.
More info and contributions at: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/147136/carrara-challenge-31-music-for-my-eyes/p1
Carrara render from PyCarrara: http://pycarrara.sourceforge.net/page7.html
Philemot has released a Carrara plugin called “Carrara bridge to VWD Cloth and Hair” for the separate application VWD Cloth And Hair by VirtualWorldDynamics.
Carrara fans have received new possibilities to create realistic cloth and hair simulation for even better still and animations.
Comment from PhilW:
That’s one of the reasons I really like using cloth dynamics, everything just seems to sit more naturally on the figure. I know it is generally more work than using conforming clothing, but there are definite benefits. And of course if animating, you get more natural movement.
DAZ3D main forum thread:
Dynamic cloth + related Carrara plugins – Best Practices, Tips and Renders thread tips:
-Tutorial by Philemot, start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQCOEBNMqeU
-Informative post in the main forums. This includes some practical advice. Check it out. Bookmark it.
Example renders by PhilW:
The dress and texturing (and hair) are all done by PhilW. Rendered in Octane Render for Carrara.
PhilW: Just a quick one to try out a new casual outfit that I made in MD and then textured and draped in Carrara using VWD, then rendered with Octane Render for Carrara. The room and furnishings are from the old Dream House collection.
PhilW: Just a recent image with the dress made in Marvelous Designer and draped in Carrara with the cloth plugin.
Dartanbeck over at the Carrara section of the Daz3D forums has created a great thread that serves as an alternative Carrara 8.5 Manual.
It includes up to date and sorted links to the video tutorials by Cripeman, details about animation, hair plugins and a lot more.
Here is a must have link for all Carrara users:
Carrara Information Manual:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/carrara-information-manual/p1
*UPDATE*
Now also added an “Carrara Information Manual” button on the frontpage of CarraraCafe.
During the holidays, OctaneRender for Carrara 3.0.0.1 Beta version was released, the GPU rendering plugin that is fully integrated into Carrara.
The beta is free for those that have a license for the 2.x version.
There is also a free demo if you have not tried out OctaneRender for Carrara here:
https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/demo/
The beta 3.0.5.03.32 Carrara plugin thread at the Octane forums, started 2016-10-16, contains several bug fixes and new features, full release log available in the forum thread:
https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=56881
More info about the upcoming Octane V3 release:
https://home.otoy.com/otoy-unveils-octanerender-3-worlds-best-gpu-renderer/
https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=51681
https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=51679
The main thread about the OctaneRender Carrara plugin:
https://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=41907
At the DAZ3D forums, there is some more info and a few renders:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/45564/octane-render-for-carrara-or4c-public-beta-now-released/p1
