Importing Daz Camera Setting to Carrara

I tried to look around but I couldn't get a clear answer.

I want to import a moving camera from Daz3D in order to render specific particle effects as a seperate render.

What I want to do then is overlay those 2 renders in order to create a complete scene.

Is something like that possible?

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,225

    Not exactly as you might expect - we cannot 'open' or otherwise import DS cameras into Carrara - at least not that I know of.

    So the way to do this would be to use something within Daz Studio on the original camera you want to track I'm not sure what or how since I don't use DS enough. Perhaps a primitive object or something?

    Have it follow the camera in the scene, save it as DUF, then import that into Carrara.

    In Carrara, you can then:

    • Select the object used for tracking
    • deselect "Visible" to make it invisible
    • Shift/select the camera you wish to use
    • Type Cntrl + K (Edit > Align)  - in the dialog, select all of the axis in the little icon of x, y and z - click Okay
    • Now Shift/select the object (deselect it) and drag the camera onto it in the hierarchy on the right - in other words, parent the camera to the object

    With the camera parented to the object it will follow the exact motions of that object. 

    To then have the camera look at a specific object in the scene, we can use the "Point At" modifier (select the camera in the hierarchy on the right, go to the Modifiers panel, click the + sign and choose Point At, then select what you want the camera to point at in the drop-down button.

    If this doesn't give you the precise "Aim" that you need, simply Insert > (bottom of the list) Target Helper Object - place that at the precise location to target, and point the camera at that.

    I'm sorry I don't know more about what to do for you in Daz Studio :(

  • TryhardTryhard Posts: 166

    Not exactly as you might expect - we cannot 'open' or otherwise import DS cameras into Carrara - at least not that I know of.

    So the way to do this would be to use something within Daz Studio on the original camera you want to track I'm not sure what or how since I don't use DS enough. Perhaps a primitive object or something?

    Have it follow the camera in the scene, save it as DUF, then import that into Carrara.

    In Carrara, you can then:

    • Select the object used for tracking
    • deselect "Visible" to make it invisible
    • Shift/select the camera you wish to use
    • Type Cntrl + K (Edit > Align)  - in the dialog, select all of the axis in the little icon of x, y and z - click Okay
    • Now Shift/select the object (deselect it) and drag the camera onto it in the hierarchy on the right - in other words, parent the camera to the object

    With the camera parented to the object it will follow the exact motions of that object. 

    To then have the camera look at a specific object in the scene, we can use the "Point At" modifier (select the camera in the hierarchy on the right, go to the Modifiers panel, click the + sign and choose Point At, then select what you want the camera to point at in the drop-down button.

    If this doesn't give you the precise "Aim" that you need, simply Insert > (bottom of the list) Target Helper Object - place that at the precise location to target, and point the camera at that.

    I'm sorry I don't know more about what to do for you in Daz Studio :(

    What you described is exactly what I want to do.

    The way I do in Daz is that I parent the camera to a null and movie it accordingly.

    But I might as well replace that null with some square primitive and attach the camera to it instead.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,225

    Not exactly as you might expect - we cannot 'open' or otherwise import DS cameras into Carrara - at least not that I know of.

    So the way to do this would be to use something within Daz Studio on the original camera you want to track I'm not sure what or how since I don't use DS enough. Perhaps a primitive object or something?

    Have it follow the camera in the scene, save it as DUF, then import that into Carrara.

    In Carrara, you can then:

    • Select the object used for tracking
    • deselect "Visible" to make it invisible
    • Shift/select the camera you wish to use
    • Type Cntrl + K (Edit > Align)  - in the dialog, select all of the axis in the little icon of x, y and z - click Okay
    • Now Shift/select the object (deselect it) and drag the camera onto it in the hierarchy on the right - in other words, parent the camera to the object

    With the camera parented to the object it will follow the exact motions of that object. 

    To then have the camera look at a specific object in the scene, we can use the "Point At" modifier (select the camera in the hierarchy on the right, go to the Modifiers panel, click the + sign and choose Point At, then select what you want the camera to point at in the drop-down button.

    If this doesn't give you the precise "Aim" that you need, simply Insert > (bottom of the list) Target Helper Object - place that at the precise location to target, and point the camera at that.

    I'm sorry I don't know more about what to do for you in Daz Studio :(

    What you described is exactly what I want to do.

    The way I do in Daz is that I parent the camera to a null and movie it accordingly.

    But I might as well replace that null with some square primitive and attach the camera to it instead.

    Yes, unless those nulls can be imported into Carrara?

     

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139
    edited October 2016

    Hmm, I just tried creating a scene in DS with just a figure and a camera (unlike Carrara, you need to create a new camera to have one in the scene), saved that as a scene, and when loaded into Carrara, it sets the Carrara camera to the same view as the one in DS. So it looks like you can load a camera, unless there are some setting that are not loaded, but at first glance, it looked the same framing and focal length to me.

    P.S. I just tried saving a scene with two cameras in DS and both came over OK into Carrara.

    Post edited by PhilW on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,225
    PhilW said:

    Hmm, I just tried creating a scene in DS with just a figure and a camera (unlike Carrara, you need to create a new camera to have one in the scene), saved that as a scene, and when loaded into Carrara, it sets the Carrara camera to the same view as the one in DS. So it looks like you can load a camera, unless there are some setting that are not loaded, but at first glance, it looked the same framing and focal length to me.

    But will an animated camera move come through in the import? That's what he wants... that would be very cool! I never really use DS for making scenes frown

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,139
    PhilW said:

    Hmm, I just tried creating a scene in DS with just a figure and a camera (unlike Carrara, you need to create a new camera to have one in the scene), saved that as a scene, and when loaded into Carrara, it sets the Carrara camera to the same view as the one in DS. So it looks like you can load a camera, unless there are some setting that are not loaded, but at first glance, it looked the same framing and focal length to me.

    But will an animated camera move come through in the import? That's what he wants... that would be very cool! I never really use DS for making scenes frown

    I just tried that and yes, that works too!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,225
    PhilW said:
    PhilW said:

    Hmm, I just tried creating a scene in DS with just a figure and a camera (unlike Carrara, you need to create a new camera to have one in the scene), saved that as a scene, and when loaded into Carrara, it sets the Carrara camera to the same view as the one in DS. So it looks like you can load a camera, unless there are some setting that are not loaded, but at first glance, it looked the same framing and focal length to me.

    But will an animated camera move come through in the import? That's what he wants... that would be very cool! I never really use DS for making scenes frown

    I just tried that and yes, that works too!

    Happy - Joy!!!

  • dbdigital2dbdigital2 Posts: 270

    As a side note.  This works fine UNLESS you lock the camera via the xyz translation and rotation before you save the Daz (duf) scene.  Which I often do so I can't bump my desk and my space navigator move the camera ever so slightly thinking I touched it (rare but it did happen to me once).  It appears that Carrara reads a locked camera as one pointed to the ground.  It is the right position otherwise, just the lense is ponting straight down.  Werid but it threw me for a loop when I loaded a scene today and none of the cameras seemed to work only giving me a solid "blue" view.  After a bit I realized that was the floor, and I looked around with the first camera Carrara created with any blank scene and found all of the cameras pointed down.  I came across this thread and wondred what could have been different.  Then I thought about the locking I normally do, and after a test, yes that was it.

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