Digital Art Zone

3DAGE - 28 December 2012 04:33 AM

Genesis in Carrara doesn’t have the same UV swapping ability of DS yet,. so….

To work with previous generation texture maps,...

Load the Genesis “Basic Female” or “Basic Male” to use V4 and M4 texture maps.

you should be able to apply any DS or Poser mat’s for V4 or M4 from your runtime, to these figures.

the same applies to the kid’s 4 ,..
Use the Genesis “Basic Child” as your starting figure if you want to use those Kid4 textures.

Once you have texture’s applied, you can still change the shape of genesis to be whatever figure shape you want.

Hope it helps

That helps quite a bit actually.  My workflow was to always just pull in the standard unisex Genesis character, and then shape and apply textures.  I’ve modified that now to pull in the basic male/female characters instead.  At this point, I can pretty much be comfy with the V4 and M4 textures and get what I want.  The M5 textures are coming in all wonky; I haven’t really tried too much with the V5/S5 textures, yet.

And I’m having issues seeing some textures in the Smart Content/Content.  For example, I tried to use the PH Classic/PH Sleek hair yesterday and while I could put basic cap/hair prop on the character, I couldn’t find the actual textures.  I’m afraid I’m going to have to dig in piece by piece and attach the texture maps by hand… which is a pita.

Glad it helped

With genesis figures like V5 / M5 , you should load the figure for the textures you want to use, eg: V5 gets V5 textures.
but I know there are some issues with the way some M5 shaders like the Philip Beard textures are loading, which needs to be fixed.
so, those won’t work correctly in the current beta.

for the Hair,. once you’ve applied it to the figure, and selected it in the instance list,. then the Smart content should show you only the materials which can be applied to whatever you have selected (see pic)

You can also Save “material presets” from Daz Studio 4.5, as DUF format, and those can be imported onto the selected item, whether that’s a figure, clothing, hair, or anything else which doesn’t have a “Smart” material available that will work in carrara.

As far as I’m aware,. the Daz3D “content team” have been working hard to convert all the products to DUF which should load directly in Carrara and DS, but there are a lot of products,...

So, there should be material presets available for most genesis things right now which are in Duf format and will work in the Carrara 8.5 beta, but some of the early genesis products may need to be re-downloaded to get the new Duf versions.
(depending on how recently you downloaded them)

hope that makes sense

Right.
Like I’ve mentioned earlier, to get the appropriate UV Mapping in the current beta, you MUST load in the correct Genesis.

If you want to use the Troll UVs, load the Troll ‘Character’ preset. Then you can dial down the Troll morphs and make something entirely different using that set of UVs. That’s how my Troll-Orcs came to be.

For V5 UVs, load the V5 Character preset

For M5 UVs, load the M5 Character preset

For Young Teens UVs, load the Young Teens Character preset

and so on.

This is why I am so excited for the future of Genesis in Carrara. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next. Now, with the new Daz Horse 2, which was built from the ground up using the same, miraculous technology as Genesis, our creature assortment should simply explode in time! Ohhhhhh am I ever an excited little animator guy!!!

Dartanbeck - 29 December 2012 12:38 AM

THAT is a beautiful render!
I can hardly believe that you’ve just purchased Carrara. Great camera placement, the water is amazing with your choice lighting, the overall composition… Just stunning and I love it!

Aw, shucks.  Thanks, man.  You’ve been a great help.

But the basics are the basics.  There are things about that scene that I don’t like and if I was putting it together for something serious, I’d tweak it around quite a bit.  It was a test to see if I could do some of those things.

I’m still experimenting with the various lights.  In Daz, I normally used UberArea lights instead of spotlights because I could create something like a softbox by varying the size and shape of the area.  I could use that to soften or harden the shadows.  I’ve learned that the Spots in Carrara can actually work the same way and that by upping the light radius in the Effects on the light will soften the shadows with a nice effect.

The M5/V5 thing is going to require a change of mind-set for me.  In Daz, I would create the character and apply all the different morphs and things I wanted and then I’d go through and apply different textures/skins until I found one I liked.  I always started with the generic Genesis character and then I’d frequently create render after render with different skins until I found the right one.  It’s fascinating to me how different a person can look with slight tweaks to the skin.  I’m going to have to think a little more about the skin I’m planning on using before I start.  :(

Thanks for your help!

thepencilneck - 30 December 2012 12:29 AM

Dartanbeck - 29 December 2012 12:38 AM

THAT is a beautiful render!
I can hardly believe that you’ve just purchased Carrara. Great camera placement, the water is amazing with your choice lighting, the overall composition… Just stunning and I love it!

Aw, shucks.  Thanks, man.  You’ve been a great help.

But the basics are the basics.  There are things about that scene that I don’t like and if I was putting it together for something serious, I’d tweak it around quite a bit.  It was a test to see if I could do some of those things.

I’m still experimenting with the various lights.  In Daz, I normally used UberArea lights instead of spotlights because I could create something like a softbox by varying the size and shape of the area.  I could use that to soften or harden the shadows.  I’ve learned that the Spots in Carrara can actually work the same way and that by upping the light radius in the Effects on the light will soften the shadows with a nice effect.

The M5/V5 thing is going to require a change of mind-set for me.  In Daz, I would create the character and apply all the different morphs and things I wanted and then I’d go through and apply different textures/skins until I found one I liked.  I always started with the generic Genesis character and then I’d frequently create render after render with different skins until I found the right one.  It’s fascinating to me how different a person can look with slight tweaks to the skin.  I’m going to have to think a little more about the skin I’m planning on using before I start.  :(

Thanks for your help!

There may be light types in Carrara that are the same as D/S, just with different names. There also are lights that are ion Carrara that are probably not in D/S.

Looking at your picture, I would add a sunlight. It will shine in the same direction as the sun’s disk in your image. You can even go to the light’s effects tab and choose Lens Flare, and a sun preset. Instead of spots for broad outdoor lighting I like to use distant lights. I use spots to light specific areas for bounced light when I’m trying to simulate GI. Carrara 8.x.x also has sun beams, IES (I think that’s the acronym) profiles and shape lights.

If you want soft shadows, you can also enable that under the light’s effects tab. I can post some screen shots later. Right now it’stime to hit the hay.

Does anyone ever render with “Caustics”? I just watched the tutorial on caustics that came with Carrara 6 Pro, which is very short. But it shows a huge difference in the reality of the image. I’ll check this out to see how time consuming it is vs how much nicer the animation looks.

As for the UVs Swapping that is currently available in DS, but not in Carrara 8.5 beta, I’m betting that they’ve been looking into implementing that functionality into the final release. If not, like you’ve mentioned above, it would just be another habit we’d have to wrap our heads around. I’m kinda lucky in that department because I’m more used to Carrara - and not used to DS at all - so I’d still find myself loading the Gorilla character to get his UV set. Then shape away from there.

I knew that your image was a test. I was actually admiring your test render! It just caught my eye as something cool to behold - and it still does… even if you don’t change a thing! I just think it’s a cool picture!

evilproducer - 30 December 2012 12:53 AM

There may be light types in Carrara that are the same as D/S, just with different names. There also are lights that are ion Carrara that are probably not in D/S.

Yep.  That’s why I’m experimenting.

evilproducer - 30 December 2012 12:53 AM

Looking at your picture, I would add a sunlight. It will shine in the same direction as the sun’s disk in your image. You can even go to the light’s effects tab and choose Lens Flare, and a sun preset. Instead of spots for broad outdoor lighting I like to use distant lights. I use spots to light specific areas for bounced light when I’m trying to simulate GI. Carrara 8.x.x also has sun beams, IES (I think that’s the acronym) profiles and shape lights.

Exactly.  Sticking a Sunlight in with Realistic Skies is one of the things I learned AFTER doing the picture.

evilproducer - 30 December 2012 12:53 AM

If you want soft shadows, you can also enable that under the light’s effects tab. I can post some screen shots later. Right now it’stime to hit the hay.

Yes, BUT.

In that Soft Shadow setup, there’s a spot where you can change the size of the light.  THIS really has more of an effect on how soft your shadows are and that’s what I was talking about.  You have to turn the soft shadows on and then tweak the radius of that light.  Here are two test renders using the exact same spotlight (all settings exactly the same) both with soft shadows on but one has a small light radius and the other has a HUGE light radius.

Right you are. That is what works so well when creating different scenes with different light source intentions. Isn’t it great?
Look at those renders. You’re still new to Carrara and you’re really getting some great results. Ya gotta love the power of this suite, don’t you?

You’ll also start getting the hang of how to manipulate the various channels in the shaders to further play with how light behaves in the scene. I remember how I would try something and then back away quickly. Then a forum mate taught me the fact that Carrara can make huge changes without a big change in values. Subtlety is a Carrara user’s friend.

I am mostly into animations and I’ve really come to enjoy the way Carrara handles in that department.

So are you performing your experiments in the beta 8.5 or in the official release of 8.1?

Dartanbeck - 30 December 2012 12:18 PM

Right you are. That is what works so well when creating different scenes with different light source intentions. Isn’t it great?
Look at those renders. You’re still new to Carrara and you’re really getting some great results. Ya gotta love the power of this suite, don’t you?

You’ll also start getting the hang of how to manipulate the various channels in the shaders to further play with how light behaves in the scene. I remember how I would try something and then back away quickly. Then a forum mate taught me the fact that Carrara can make huge changes without a big change in values. Subtlety is a Carrara user’s friend.

I am mostly into animations and I’ve really come to enjoy the way Carrara handles in that department.

So are you performing your experiments in the beta 8.5 or in the official release of 8.1?

I’m using the 8.5 beta because I heard it had better Genesis and Smart Content support.

After the conversations we’ve had in this thread, I decided to go ahead and make a couple of minor tweaks to the Sea Battle picture.  I didn’t want to make any changes to the camera (which is one of the things I would have done to spice the picture up); I limited myself to lighting changes.

So, I’ve loaded 3 files: the original, a sunlight dropped in with a light flare, and then building off the second picture, I added the Skylight GI and reddened the spot behind the tower.  Notice how much more full the smoke looks with the sunlight hitting it from the other direction and also look at the slight difference to the rocks the GI makes.

Looking good. If you decide you like the Carrara and move beyond the trial version, I would recommend looking at simulating GI if nothing more, than to learn the lights better. For instance, did you know that you can exclude objects from the lights? or restrict the light to a single object?

evilproducer - 30 December 2012 01:20 PM

Looking good. If you decide you like the Carrara and move beyond the trial version, I would recommend looking at simulating GI if nothing more, than to learn the lights better. For instance, did you know that you can exclude objects from the lights? or restrict the light to a single object?

I went ahead and bought it.  I should probably change the title of the thread, huh?

I’ve seen the simulated GI both in a tutorial and in a Howie Farkes scene I bought.  And, yes, I was playing with the light restriction stuff yesterday.  That’s extremely cool.  In Daz, I was always having to muck around with the fall-off of the lights to try to minimize spillage.