Digital Art Zone

Is anyone using either of the programs for rendering daz and poser content?
Which is better to use regarding easy importing and re-texturing the models.
I have looked at both but am undecided. I love Modo’s UI and tools.
I also love the new features of Cinema 4D R14’s camera and composition aids.
I am learning After Effects for compositing and visual effects and C4D seems to play well with it.
But theres something about Modo that is very appealing.
Would anyone with experience like to share their opinions?

If you want Daz and Poser content compatibility then Carrara is the best, since it has native support for Daz/Poser functions, for example morphs, that are impossible to export.

Thanks 3drendero. I am a Carrara user and love the app but it has limitations. The renders look amazing on the Luxology and Maxon sites. There is no Reality plug-in for Carrara which is a shame. Also there are more tools for modelling, texturing, painting etc in Modo and C4D.

londonmarlo - 03 November 2012 09:58 AM

Thanks 3drendero. I am a Carrara user and love the app but it has limitations. The renders look amazing on the Luxology and Maxon sites. There is no Reality plug-in for Carrara which is a shame. Also there are more tools for modelling, texturing, painting etc in Modo and C4D.

Just looked at some renders on the Maxon site - seems to me Carrara in the right hands can easily match what i saw there.

If you havent seen the artist showcase on the Carrara Cafe recommend you have a look.

http://carraracafe.com/?page_id=65

If you want to easily use Poser (DAZ) content the best route would be to go with C4D and InterPoser Pro. InterPoser Pro will allow you to use your Poser runtime with C4D, and retain all the morphs and bones. With Modo you will need to export your figure to obj and import into Modo. All morphs will need to be imported/created individually.

One word of caution though, in order to have the same feature set you currently have in Carrara, You will need to get the Studio version of C4D ($3,695). True, this will give you a lot of features not found in Carrara, but that’s quite a hefty price tag unless you have some really good reasons for moving up to a pro application.

The renderer in Modo is very nice, and very fast, but you’ll have to deal with a less than ideal import routine to use your DAZ/Poser content in Modo. Unless you have a very specific need for some of the advanced modeling tools (or other tools) in Modo, it really isn’t an ideal environment for using DAZ/Poser content.

Carrara’s renderer is really extremely good for the price. True, it hasn’t gotten a lot of love since DAZ purchased it, but it can still produce fantastic results. If speed is an issue, with the money you spend on C4D you could get a dual hex or octa core CPU rig that would make Carrara renders fly. If you plan on using Lux, then the machine I just mentioned would definitely serve you much better than getting expensive software. In fact, if your really interested in using Lux, you could export to obj (like you would have to with Modo), then import into Blender and use Lux (or Cycles) to render. In fact, if your looking for another application that has more features and faster development than Carrara, you should take a serious look at Blender.

Both Modo and C4D are fantastic applications, but Modo isn’t Poser/DAZ friendly, and to duplicate the capabilities of Carrara you need to spend a lot on C4D (plus the cost of annual maintenance), and get interposer Pro. If your goal is to render Poser/DAZ content, then it’s hard to beat Carrara. Carrara can get outstanding render results with a little work, and Carrara has integrated landscape tools that neither C4D or Modo have.

I would strongly suggest that you look at what you really want from your 3D tool set, and then go through the tools available in Carrara, Modo, C4D, and Blender. If faster/better renders is your main goal, then I would strongly suggest you learn how to get everything you can from Carrara first (most everything you learn about lighting, materials, and rendering can be transported to another software later). Lux Render is very nice, but you can achieve very similar results in Carrara - and the render times will also be equivalent (loooong).

Some good info here in this thread. But it should also be noted that you should experiment with Carrara render settings if speed is one of your issues and you can’t afford a powerful rig yet. You’ll find that the default settings are really much higher than they need to be.

Off the top of my head, you can often turn the filter sharpness all the way down to zero from the default 75. You’ll still have more resolution and sharpness than you’d get if you were actually shooting real life on film and save render time (One of my pet peeves about some 3d artists is them thinking everything has to be ultra sharp. You’ll cause suspension of disbelief more easily by making a picture look more film like - more grainy or less perfect in some 3D folks eyes - so it won’t look so computer digital perfect). If you don’t believe me, just step through a DVD frame by frame to see how grainy they look. You should focus more on lighting and constrast, color schemes, etc. as they will make your work seem sharper, though it isn’t. Think of YouTube videos that look sharp but aren’t.

Also, you can lower the maximum ray depth settings from the default 8 to 4 or 2 and many times be just fine. You may need 8 if you have a lot of reflection, for example. Set your settings for each individual scene so you can find the sweet spot for each.

Your mileage may vary on the bucket Tile size settings, but often the default 128 setting is too high for Carrara (higher is better sometimes for Poser, not Carrara). You can speed up many renders by dropping it to 32 or 64, but it does depend on how complex your scene is - you may get better results with 128 for some scenes. Experimenting is key.

If you want faster GI - fake it. There are tutorials out there on how to do it or you can get some really good and fast results using Tim Payne’s GI substitute from the store. It looks as good as real GI to my eyes and it’s fast and really good on the medium quality light set.

Animation preview renders with full textures should generally be done at lower resolutions. No point wasting time if you can see what’s going on at 320 by 240 or it’s wider screen counterpart. Use 24fps - that will also save render time for animations and give you suspension of disbelief more readily. 30fps is good for news coverage and reality TV shows… not animation.

I hope those tips save you some money. A few thousand dollars is only worth spending if you really need the software. If you are doing it to learn animation, it’s a waste of money. I know of guys who got big studio jobs (ILM for one guy) with demos they made using hobbyist software like Animation:Master and Blender (it’s their animation skills, ability, acting smarts, creativity and being able to work well with others that got them the job). If you are setting up your own shop, it may be worth the purchase, but it may not. I know guys who bought and learned Lightwave or 3DS Max and have never used it for work more than maybe once or twice. The rest of the time they are doing things in After Effects with motion graphics or their editing software with real video footage.

Thanks dustrider, Kevin for your advice. Lots of useful tips that will surely help me.. I am using Carrara for all my work at the moment. I am a Mac user so buying a PC is not really an option. I will be buying the new 27” iMac as soon as its released so that will speed up my workflow.
I am a Fashion Photographer who incorporates 3D sets and elements into my work. I prefer to shoot indoors and create the CGI using Carrara.
My main inspiration is an International Photographer and digital artist named “Benedict Campbell”. He is very concept driven and creates some amazing imagery using C4D and Photography. He also uses Daz models as a base instead of creating from scratch.

You’re welcome. Sounds like fun work!

Agree with Kevin. Carrara is very fast and stable when your scene is optimized. Also consider buying BAKER to bake your textures (including shadows) so you can render with as few lights in the scene as possible, and rendering foregrounds separately from backgrounds - the speed boost can make 2 separate renders FASTER than one single render… Also look to using Shadow Buffers where you can (you will probably need baker to correct for some “glow” issues).

This is what the “pros” do regardless of what software they use.

Excellent advice holly wetcircuit. So much to learn. Would eventually like to render out of Carrara and take the renders into After Effects for compositing and VFX.

dustrider - 03 November 2012 09:39 PM

If you want to easily use Poser (DAZ) content the best route would be to go with C4D and InterPoser Pro. InterPoser Pro will allow you to use your Poser runtime with C4D, and retain all the morphs and bones. With Modo you will need to export your figure to obj and import into Modo. All morphs will need to be imported/created individually.

One word of caution though, in order to have the same feature set you currently have in Carrara, You will need to get the Studio version of C4D ($3,695). True, this will give you a lot of features not found in Carrara, but that’s quite a hefty price tag unless you have some really good reasons for moving up to a pro application.

The renderer in Modo is very nice, and very fast, but you’ll have to deal with a less than ideal import routine to use your DAZ/Poser content in Modo. Unless you have a very specific need for some of the advanced modeling tools (or other tools) in Modo, it really isn’t an ideal environment for using DAZ/Poser content.

Carrara’s renderer is really extremely good for the price. True, it hasn’t gotten a lot of love since DAZ purchased it, but it can still produce fantastic results. If speed is an issue, with the money you spend on C4D you could get a dual hex or octa core CPU rig that would make Carrara renders fly. If you plan on using Lux, then the machine I just mentioned would definitely serve you much better than getting expensive software. In fact, if your really interested in using Lux, you could export to obj (like you would have to with Modo), then import into Blender and use Lux (or Cycles) to render. In fact, if your looking for another application that has more features and faster development than Carrara, you should take a serious look at Blender.

Both Modo and C4D are fantastic applications, but Modo isn’t Poser/DAZ friendly, and to duplicate the capabilities of Carrara you need to spend a lot on C4D (plus the cost of annual maintenance), and get interposer Pro. If your goal is to render Poser/DAZ content, then it’s hard to beat Carrara. Carrara can get outstanding render results with a little work, and Carrara has integrated landscape tools that neither C4D or Modo have.

I would strongly suggest that you look at what you really want from your 3D tool set, and then go through the tools available in Carrara, Modo, C4D, and Blender. If faster/better renders is your main goal, then I would strongly suggest you learn how to get everything you can from Carrara first (most everything you learn about lighting, materials, and rendering can be transported to another software later). Lux Render is very nice, but you can achieve very similar results in Carrara - and the render times will also be equivalent (loooong).

Hello,
A questing:
You can bring poser / daz, a character in Cinema4D?
Or better: no solution to export a character from C4D to poser / daz?
thank you

jorge dorlando - 12 February 2013 05:35 PM

Hello,
A questing:
You can bring poser / daz, a character in Cinema4D?
Or better: no solution to export a character from C4D to poser / daz?
thank you

Yes, with Interposer Pro (http://www.kuroyumes-developmentzone.com/interposer-pro/) you can use you DAZ/Poser content very much like in Carrara, at least that is my understanding (haven’t used it in years), people that use it seem very happy with it.  There is no Genesis support .... yet, I’ve read posts that indicate this is in development. The other option is to set up your character in DS/Carrara/Poser, export to .obj (no rigging so you must pose first), then import into C4D (or Modo, etc.). Back in the dark ages, I used to export from Poser and render in C4D (version 6) and Carrara (version 3). I dropped C4D due to the increasing costs, and better native support of DAZ/Poser content in Carrara.

You can use C4D to make models for use in Carrara or DS, I used to use it to model clothing for Poser. You would need to export from C4D using .obj, but this would only be for “static” objects. C4D rigging won’t transfer, as far a I know, unless it can be done via collada. I really liked C4D, it was almost as easy for me as Carrara, but simply got out of my price range.

Humm! Because my situation is as follows:
I need a thug to be a security agent (character)
I found a really ideal for what I need:
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=42773
But this is native C4D.
I do not have C4D, but could download a test version and export to poser, so ...
Note I have not yet purchased this character, not

Render in Carrara!!!

Dartanbeck - 12 February 2013 07:05 PM

Render in Carrara!!!

To render I already have the vue 10 complete.
My question: I wanted to know the possibilities of bringing this model native C4D for poser.
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=42773

jorge dorlando - 12 February 2013 07:13 PM

Dartanbeck - 12 February 2013 07:05 PM

Render in Carrara!!!

To render I already have the vue 10 complete.
My question: I wanted to know the possibilities of bringing this model native C4D for poser.
http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_details.aspx?id_product=42773

Great character! You could export to .obj, then re-rig in Poser - but that would be a lot of work. Maybe Wendy will chime in and share some of her rigging, and moving rigs from one app to another knowledge. Collada may work, but I don’t know how well C4D exports collada.