Well up until yesterday, I barely knew Carrara existed. Sure I had seen the name and occassionaly a product advertised but that was about it. But thanks to HowieFarkes products and some very kind people in another thread that I kind of unintentionally hi-jacked (really sorry about that), I plunged forward and bought Carrara yesterday and did my first render last night.
And…it was so nice to render right out of the box so to speak and it look great.
So with suggestions from the other thread, I have everything installed and setup. It was pretty easy really.
Tonight my goal was to load an object into the scene and then try a render, a hot air balloon specifically. Well I loaded the object but didn’t see where it was and then had trouble moving around the scene. LOL. ok so that part didn’t go as smoothly as installing.
I saw some vids on Learning Carrara in the store and watched some samples off the website so I think I will purchase them to help me get up to speed.
To me just getting something rendered that looks good was great and I didn’t have to do anything except load the scene and click render.
I showed a friend at work a couple of the renders from last night and his comment was, “And those aren’t photographs?”
Handy hint:: edit your preferences with regards to keyboard shortcuts.
specifically “views”
I have my numerical zero hooked up to “view selection” and the njumber three hooked up to “director’s camera”
Using the director’s camera is very handy, as i t doen’t get involved in your “edit undo list”
so eg when you lose something, select it in the instanced drop down list (that thing on the bottiom right, then hit “3”
and you will be looking through the director;s camera
then hit “zeero” and you will be zoomed in on that object
presto: no more lost objects ....
if the object is still lost it is either invisable or the hot point is not on the object,
Welcome aboard! For starters, have a little peak inside the Carrara Information Manual, follow some links to and fro, pay a visit to the samples of those video tutorials at the Daz3d store in there, Have a walk through the Cripeman video tutorial index (free video tutorials) as well as many other helpful links and fun stuff.
There’s even a link to the free downloads of the fantastic C3DE (Carrara 3D Expo) magagazine right in the Table of Contents! Perhaps post some of your renders in the “Post Your Renders” post and/or check out what others have beenrendering and discussing….
Above all else, have fun in the exciting world of Carrara!
Handy hint:: edit your preferences with regards to keyboard shortcuts.
specifically “views”
I have my numerical zero hooked up to “view selection” and the njumber three hooked up to “director’s camera”
Using the director’s camera is very handy, as i t doen’t get involved in your “edit undo list”
so eg when you lose something, select it in the instanced drop down list (that thing on the bottiom right, then hit “3”
and you will be looking through the director;s camera
then hit “zeero” and you will be zoomed in on that object
presto: no more lost objects ....
if the object is still lost it is either invisable or the hot point is not on the object,
All absolutely fantastic advice!
You rock Head Wax!
when learning a new program I always find that thse simple things are left out of tuts, because the chap giving the tut has assumes “x” amount of knowledge.
for exmaple I could have pointed out to OP where the change hotpoint command is but that would make life too easy
\
but seriously, it’s up on the top right, you will see three/four tabs in a horizontal format
cant remember what they say off hand
click on maybe the middle one and you will see pleanty of boxes full od numbers for changing xyz xoordinates and scales etc,
below one of those set of boxes you will see two buttons
one will centre the hot point on the object,
one will cebtre the object on the hot point
Handy hint:: edit your preferences with regards to keyboard shortcuts.
specifically “views”
I have my numerical zero hooked up to “view selection” and the njumber three hooked up to “director’s camera”
Using the director’s camera is very handy, as i t doen’t get involved in your “edit undo list”
so eg when you lose something, select it in the instanced drop down list (that thing on the bottiom right, then hit “3”
and you will be looking through the director;s camera
then hit “zeero” and you will be zoomed in on that object
presto: no more lost objects ....
if the object is still lost it is either invisable or the hot point is not on the object,
Hahah…not really a question as just some observations so far. I’ve never been much of a shortcut person but I am willing to try. I watched a vid for like 5 minutes and can find my way around. I found my balloon by going to the top and left view. (now that I know where they are).
Welcome aboard! For starters, have a little peak inside the Carrara Information Manual, follow some links to and fro, pay a visit to the samples of those video tutorials at the Daz3d store in there, Have a walk through the Cripeman video tutorial index (free video tutorials) as well as many other helpful links and fun stuff.
There’s even a link to the free downloads of the fantastic C3DE (Carrara 3D Expo) magagazine right in the Table of Contents! Perhaps post some of your renders in the “Post Your Renders” post and/or check out what others have beenrendering and discussing….
Above all else, have fun in the exciting world of Carrara!
Thanks. Some really good advice there. I’ve been looking at some renders already. I really like renders because it gives me a good idea of what the program is capable of. I’m about 1/2 through the “Post Your Renders” thread. I’ll check out the links too.
One other source you can get to help learn Carrara is the book Carrara 5 Pro Handbook by Mike de la Flor. While it is for an earlier version all the info in it can be applied to Carrara. If you get a copy make sure it has the disk that comes with it, as that has files you’ll need.
Also as was mentioned, Cripeman and others have many good free video tutorials online.
One other source you can get to help learn Carrara is the book Carrara 5 Pro Handbook by Mike de la Flor. While it is for an earlier version all the info in it can be applied to Carrara. If you get a copy make sure it has the disk that comes with it, as that has files you’ll need.
Also as was mentioned, Cripeman and others have many good free video tutorials online.
ShareCG has a few free PDF tutorials too.
Thanks! I’ll see if I can get a copy. I’ve made a vow to really concentrate and learn 3d stuff this year and so far other than lighting and not always being able to get a hold of good tutorials, it’s been fun.
And with Studio nothing ever looked as good as I imagined and that’s why I’m excited by Carrara because I really like outdoor scenes and they look good when I render them so far. Now when I try some stuff on my own lol that’ll be a different story but until then I’ll have some eye pleasing samples.
when you’re moving around in Carrara,. the camera uses the “selected object” as the Axis of rotation.
You can use ALT and CTRL plus click and drag the mouse in the work area to move the camera instead of selecting the tool from the tool-bar on the left.
If you “Drag ‘n’ Drop items from the browser,.. directly into the scene,. then their placement can be variable depending on when you drop the object,..
If you double click the item’s thumbnail icon to load it into the carrara scene,. then the item will always appear in the scene centre
If you loose focus on you object,. or you want to move the camera to that object,. press 0 (zero) on the keyboard to “Focus” the camera on that object,.
this can also be used to move around the scene, zoom in and out etc.
And then there’s Edit > Send to Origin
which will send the selected item to it’s default location. Often times this is 0,0,0
One of my favorites, when that doesn’t work, is one that Head Wax mentions, but you don’t have to set it up i advance, is to select an object and hit “0” (zero, not shift o), which zooms your view to the object.
Another that he mentioned that I also find to be crucial, and you really never hear anyone mention it, is using the Directors Camera.
The spiffy part of this baby is that it cannot be animated. So when you’re working on an animation, you’re not setting keyframes. But even if you’re working on a still picture, moving a normal camera uses an ‘undo’ slot. if you zoom with the mouse wheel, each increment can be undone. This can use up all of your undo’s in a hurry.
The Director’s Camera cannot be keyframed, so its movements, pans and zooms cannot be undone - leaving your undo buffer free for your 3d work. Sweet thing to remember.
when you’re moving around in Carrara,. the camera uses the “selected object” as the Axis of rotation.
You can use ALT and CTRL plus click and drag the mouse in the work area to move the camera instead of selecting the tool from the tool-bar on the left.
If you “Drag ‘n’ Drop items from the browser,.. directly into the scene,. then their placement can be variable depending on when you drop the object,..
If you double click the item’s thumbnail icon to load it into the carrara scene,. then the item will always appear in the scene centre
If you loose focus on you object,. or you want to move the camera to that object,. press 0 (zero) on the keyboard to “Focus” the camera on that object,.
this can also be used to move around the scene, zoom in and out etc.
I think part of the problem with last night is that since it was a premade scene I didn’t want to move around much because I didn’t want to mess up the “shot”. Normally in studio I would create another camera or use perspective view to move objects. Last night I was just too overwhelmed with the newness of the software to determine what I could do and how. Tonight I’m going to work on putting objects in the scene. I consider last night a success. Thanks for the tips.
And then there’s Edit > Send to Origin
which will send the selected item to it’s default location. Often times this is 0,0,0
One of my favorites, when that doesn’t work, is one that Head Wax mentions, but you don’t have to set it up i advance, is to select an object and hit “0” (zero, not shift o), which zooms your view to the object.
Another that he mentioned that I also find to be crucial, and you really never hear anyone mention it, is using the Directors Camera.
The spiffy part of this baby is that it cannot be animated. So when you’re working on an animation, you’re not setting keyframes. But even if you’re working on a still picture, moving a normal camera uses an ‘undo’ slot. if you zoom with the mouse wheel, each increment can be undone. This can use up all of your undo’s in a hurry.
The Director’s Camera cannot be keyframed, so its movements, pans and zooms cannot be undone - leaving your undo buffer free for your 3d work. Sweet thing to remember.
The directors camera sounds like what I need to use to move and place objects. So now I know where to change those I’ll see about trying that perspective tonight. I’ll also focus on just moving around and switching views to get more comfortable. I started watching the training vids and that will help. Overall it doesn’t seem as bad as I feared it would be. I just need to get familiar with the interface and then out some scenes together.
I didn’t want to move around much because I didn’t want to mess up the “shot”.
In Carrara,. you can create multiple camera’s from the INSERT menu , and (in the camera options pop-up menu) you can save several different camera “positions” with a name, so you can load that position again, or create another camera and load that saved position.
You can also create a “Target Helper Object” (the equivalent of a NULL object in DS) then you can select your Camera,. go to the (Modifiers) tab in the top right hand panels, and select “Point at” ... then select the new target helper object you created, (or any other object in the scene) from the list.
Now when you move the camera, it’ll always point at that selected object.
I didn’t want to move around much because I didn’t want to mess up the “shot”.
In Carrara,. you can create multiple camera’s from the INSERT menu , and (in the camera options pop-up menu) you can save several different camera “positions” with a name, so you can load that position again, or create another camera and load that saved position.
You can also create a “Target Helper Object” (the equivalent of a NULL object in DS) then you can select your Camera,. go to the (Modifiers) tab in the top right hand panels, and select “Point at” ... then select the new target helper object you created, (or any other object in the scene) from the list.
Now when you move the camera, it’ll always point at that selected object.
I tried some things last night. I added 3 hot air balloons to country roads 2, I believe that is the name. I need to add a couple of cars and some people or at least try.
For some reason I’m not finding how to add cameras on the insert menu. On studio it was just new camera easy peasy. I’m sure it’s easy this way too. I’m just not seeing it.
I started watching some training vids last night but fell asleep lol.
