Here we go again. 
By popular demand (actually Holly demanded it) I'm going to start a WIP thread for my newest 3D project. I started talking about this project over in the Carrara and 3D forum, but now I'm moving it over here.
This is the final alien character I have to recreate for the New Worlds Project. I've been doing some work for them for the past year, and I've saved the best (most difficult) for last. This will be my third attempt at getting this character right.
When I started working with the New Worlds Project, I was by no means a figure creator. I'd never modelled anything more than clothes for the various characters I'd created for use in Carrara and Poser. The last two New Worlds aliens I worked on required me to become a figure modeller no matter what. This last figure is proving to be the most complicated of all, at least for me.
I anticipate some difficulty when it comes to rigging. You'll see why as the project progresses. I know very little about rigging beyond basic human biped figures. This figure is going to be bipedal but not very human. I'm going to be rigging in Poser because, while rigging in Carrara is simple and easy, weight mapping, in my experience, is not. And since I also anticipate using the figure in both Poser and Carrara, I'm going the Poser rigging route.
I'm modeling the figure in Silo. I switched to Silo from Hexagon. I loved Hexagon, but I had issues with it which are never going to be fixed, so after a bit of research I decided on Silo. I find Silo extremely easy to navigate and very robust and stable.
I will be using 3D Coat for UV mapping and perhaps some 3D painting. I used 3D Coat to UV map my last creation for New Worlds. It was the most fun and trouble free UV mapping I've ever done.
Carrara is going to be the final program I will use in this project. I like Carrara's ease of use. It's just plain fast. I'm also much more familiar with Carrara's shader system, and I like the results I get with it. I also like to render in Carrara. I can get superior results in Poser also, but Carrara, once again, is just fast with much less hassle.
That's the background. Comments are welcome and appreciated. As soon as I can figure out how to add images to my posts, I'll get started
Finally, some good news!
New Worlds has approved this version, and I will be moving on to the next step. For this guy, the next step is modeling leaves/foliage to 'flesh' out the model. I've only had marginal success with adding leaves to a model in the past. I'd love to use Fenric's Ivy Generator plugin for Carrara, but I've never been able to get it to work properly.
If anybody has any Carrara Ivy Generator tips, I'm all ears. Otherwise, I'll have to go back into Silo and attack the problem from there.
Tried Ivy Generator last night. I got some very nice ivy from it. I ended up with several different growths for different parts of the model. It exported well (this is the stand alone version). I imported my model and the ivy models into Carrara. Everything looks good, but when I render there are no leaves.
I experimented for a while and found that just about every shader I have in my Carrara library works on those ivy leaves except the included ivy leaves. Even a set of Carrara leaves I have from DAZ (GKDantas, I think) don't work. I also have a collection of other leaf textures created by Spacebones(?) for Ivy Generator, and they don't work either.
I imported the ivy into Poser and all works well, but not in Carrara. Any thoughts?
I'm not using Fenric's Ivy Generator plugin because I've never been able to get it to work. I always get a short length of ivy with huge leaves. I've fiddled with the various parameters, but all I get is a mess.
Normaly, you must have a folder with the textures in the pack "Ivy Generator"...
That work fine for me, but I must resize the object in Carrara.
I'm using Carrara 8 also, I'm also using Ivy Generator stand alone and not Fenrics plugin. The ivy imports just fine. I always have to tell Carrara where the textures are. After that, all loads as it should. The textures show up in the shader tree like normal. The problem is the leaf textures do not render.
I've tried all I can think of to fix this. I reversed normals, nothing changed. I created my owm image texture from the Ivy Generator leaf, i saved as a .jpg with a separate transparency map and also as a .png with its own trans. No change. I've tried a couple of different leaf textures all with the same results. Solid colors and shaders with no trans will render fine, but leaf textures with transparency will not render. This is a problem specific, so far, to the Ivy Generator leaves. Transparency works in Carrara for every thing else, hair, clothing, etc.
I finally decided to use some of Carrara's other magic to at least temporarily solve my leaf problem. I deleted all the leaf faces from the generated ivy, leaving only the vines. I added a plane to the scene and sized it down to be more in scale with the vines. I added one of the ivy generator textures I have (renders just fine on the plane). I used Carrara's replicator to populate the vines with leaves.
It's not pretty, but here are the results.
The setting need some tweaking. I've got about 4 to 5 thousand instances for each ivy growth. I think I can reduce that still more. After adding a few more, I started getting leaves poking through the geometry where I didn't want them. Shuffling the instances didn't help much. My machine was also starting to get sluggish from all the instances.
I converted all the instances I'd added so far to actual geometry and that seemed to help with the sluggish performance. It also gives me the ability to remove or reposition leaves that poke through the figure mesh.
I don't know why the same texture will not render on Ivy Generator leave but will render on a Carrara plane. Strange. For my next experiment, I will create a better leaf poly to get some curve to the leaves.
Anyway, here's another shot with a bit more ivy added and instances turned into geometry. It needs some work, but this is only an experiment.
Sorry I have been away... I was gonna suggest using the surface replicator...
If you have AnythingGrows from DCG, that had some interesting tools too. Not sure it would give you more options, but maybe... It has a "tip" item which can be manipulated to wave like wind... I don't know if you are animating, but maybe it could be helpful with plant expressions? thinking perky..., droopy..., shaking like a leaf, lol
Oooo! Anything Grows looks like it would do the trick and several other tricks as well. I'm thinking of buying one of DCGs bundles. I just have one question for DCG about the cart. When I get an answer, I'm going to get it.
Thanks, Holly.
Bought Anything Grows in a bundle from DCG. Well worth the money. I got Anything Grow, Anything Grooves, Shader Ops and Starbright. It's Christmas again.
Now, I need to play. Anything Grows is incredibly simple to understand. I just need to figure out the best way to use it for my plant alien.
Back soon.
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