Digital Art Zone

I just got Carrara 8 and I’m not being able to see my Daz figures at all (I regularly use DS 4 and Bryce 7).  At first I was trying to import scenes from my Daz Studio 4.5 and running into trouble with the .duf incompatibility issue.  So instead I decided to start with the basics, link to my Daz/Poser runtime in the Carrara Browser, and then drag and drop basic figures like V4.  The content seems to be all there but when I drag and drop nothing shows on the Assemble room.  I know the figures are somewhere there because I do see them in the Model room.  But then when I do a Render it’s like the figure is invisible!

I’m sure I’m doing (or not doing) something very simple but it’s very frustrating.  Any help would be great!

Double click don’t drag and drop. You are drag and dropping a medium figure; 30 m, into a huge scene 3000m. She is there, that tiny little spec

HI

Start by selecting a NEW “Medium” scale scene,. this is ideal for working with Human scale figures.

You can add BIG landscapes and forests, or anything else,.. into that medium scale scene,.

You can actually Drag ‘n’ Drop content into the scene , or into the Scene Instance list, on the right of the browser,.
one issue with dragging it in, is that the figure will appear wherever you dragged it to,.
If you double click, then the figure will always appear at the centre of the scene.

Carrara 8 doesn’t support DUF, since the program was written before the file format was

The Carrara 8.5 “Beta” will load import duf files

Thanks for your help.  That definitely was the problem.  I started with the medium scene and was able to import the figures and see them.  But now the figures show up all white when they’re supposed to be gray.  It’s evident that the right textures aren’t being loaded automatically.  Is there some way I can have the program find the textures automatically or do I have to pair up figure and texture somehow?

That depends on the figure. Some figures’ cr2 file point to textures while others are “blank”.

Once you have a figure textured as you like, drag the animation group (the one labeled V4 or whatever to Carrara"s Browser to save it as a Carrara file, ready to drag into any scene….

If you add clothes and props, you can group them all with the figure and drag the whole group to the browser, ready to use.

Except for genesis all my DAZ figures load textured.  So which figures aren’t loading with textures?

Again you don’t need to import and just double clicking on the figure will load it and the right scale scene.

I started with cattle from Noggins.  The cattle comes out all white.

The worst problem is that I tweaked a lot of figures on DS 4.5 (mostly M4s and V4s), and I didn’t keep a record on what precise tweaks and morphs and add-ons I used, so it’d be really hard to just to load the original figure in Carrara and build it up again. 

Most of the stuff that I want to use in Carrara is in duf files.  I know that the 8.5 beta apparently handles duf files… When I got Carrara, I got a 8.5.0.132 download along with it, but none of the serial numbers in here seem to work for it.  And I saw links for 8.5.0.172 but I guess that’s down now.

Do you have the textured button clicked?

CDZCPRO-085-0000018-ZWM-001-EBTOMDO  (Expires 12/1/2012)
is the serial for the C8.5 beta, they SHOULD release a new one when it runs out
it is in the sticky thread at the top of the Carrara forum

and I drag and drop my figures in from the browser all the time!!
but
from the top view
they always have their feet on the zero point of the z axis but land where I want them.
do this setting up all my scenes ie furniture where I want it etc

Thank you to everyone for all your advice~