Metaball Modelling Example
Scififunk opens the Metaball Modeler
How to Light up Windows in a 3D Night Scene
The technique I’m showing here is to isolate the windows you wish to be on by cutting them out (and the immediate surroundings if you want that), and shining a bulb light onto the cut out (and only the cut out).
This gives you the ultimate control over where you light falls, and because you can assign a separate shader for the new model you can alter how the light interacts with the window pane.
You could even set up more than one shading domain and shader to have the windows behave differently.
This technique is not the quickest but I would argue its the most flexible set up.
When Clothes Go Bad (How to fix for 3D animation)
A fix for Carrara Poser figures if their clothes do not follow the figure they are conformed to anymore.
This is one of those bugs in Carrara where if you know it, you are ok. If not you might be perplexed for some time. In the solution demo I show clothes moving differently to the figure they are attached to. I believe this occurs in Carrara when the clothes have been grouped within the figure. There will be other reasons as well. Whatever the reason, the solution is the same. Remove and add afresh. This will fix the problem.
Morph Targets Tutorial
Morph targets allow the animator to define an area of an object, move it and then animate (tween) between the two states (un-morphed and morphed). In Carrara the morph targets are keyframe animatable. Therefore you can take advantage of the facilities in the sequencer (such as easing in and out).
The video shows how to use morph targets for animation avoiding Poser figures and using low poly objects instead. The reason I point this technique out for low poly figures is that with some care you can avoid having skeletons attached to your objects.
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How to export Aniblocks from DAZ Studio into Carrara
To export an AniBlock from DAZ Studio to Carrara, you’ll need to bake to studio keyframes first. This video shows why and the correct way to export Aniblocks from Daz Studio and into Carrara.
How to Build a Big Set for 3D Animation
ScifiFunk talks as a filmmaker about building a large-environment set for his 3D movie.
In Part 1 I show a render tour of the set so that you can see what the final set looks like. The set is rendered in Carrara with no post work. The 3d models used in the set come from a variety of artists (with lots from Stonemason), plus include my own edits of these models (to fit the set) plus some 3d models that I had to make myself.
I explain how I reduce costs in 3d model buying and how I can construct a realistic looking scene via online location scouting.
This guide to keeping your file size small starts with a look at your choice of 3d models. However even these can be reduced quite dramatically. In the example shown I reduced Stonemason’s “faded industry” from approx 1600k to approx 500k a whopping 66 percent saving!
After creating all these mini scenes of indiviual buildings, you can merge the scenes (import them in Carrara) to create your composite scene.
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Animated Textures onto Uv Mapped models Tutorial
Using the Blade Runner inspired Dirigible with an animated advert.
This tutorial shows two different ways of bringing a movie onto a texture and how to make it fit a uv mapped area.
Some post processing is inevitable and so the tutorial explains how to do the extra stuff in sony vegas.
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