Digital Art Zone

HI All

LOH
for writing with particles, you’d make a path, and have the particle emitter follow that path.
Use meta-ball particles, since they join together, like a liquid would.

You have an option in the particle emitter which allows you to “emit now” and that can be key-framed (on and off)
so, you can have the particles stop being emitted at the end of the letter, and start again at the start of the next letter, shape, or word.

you can set the emitter to be invisible, or, have the particles emit from another object, such as the nib of a pen.

For the IK chain link tool,..
This is for creating IK chains in your own figures,..  figures you’ve bought, like V4 M4 etc, don’t need this, and they can be posed easily in carrara.  .. you can select both hands and / or, feet at the same time,.. and move / rotate them.

You can also create IK target helpers (target helper objects) (like a “Null” object in Daz Studio).

IK target helpers allow you to move the helper objects, (instead of the figure bones) and the figure will follow those targets.

If you open a new scene,. and then go to File / Import ..then browse to wherever you have V4 or M4 located
(EG: Poser 8 / Runtime / geometries
then load the Victoria 4 CR2 file,.. Carrara will offer you some import options, such as “Create IK target helpers”
which creates target helper objects for the hands and feet.

For the question about V4 and Hair caps…

When you apply the hair to the Cap object, .. then that will be the object which shows up in the hair room.
the hair cap is only parented to the figure,. so the figure won’t show up in the hair room, only the object the hair is applied to.

You don’t need to use the hair caps,.. you can grow hair directly onto the figures head, but.. hair caps have a textured surface which can help sell the illusion of hair.

AtticAnne

The Carrara native content installer only comes with the Full version of Carrara,... you also get a bunch of “bonus” Daz3D content, like V4 / M4, and carrara shaders.
The carrara native content gives you a bunch of preset shaders, sky’s, clouds, tree’s, example scenes, plus a bunch of simple models, from Aircraft to Ziggurat’s,. Everyday objects, food, animals vehicles, etc.. and Buildings
everything you’d need to get started.

Hope it helps

LightofHeaven - 01 October 2012 07:54 PM

Kimber: Here is a PDF I found for Carrara 8—http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/pub/faq/software_carrara/carrara/carrara_8_basic_guide.pdf

Other versions:
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/carrara/start

Perfect, I can put the pdf on my nook.
Thanks

Particles I found the option to switch from keyframes to motion paths, but I have yet to figure out how to actually create the path.

IK Target: IK TARGET is what I meant. :D But do you really need to import the .obj to load the targets? Clicking on the chain thing on the left hand toolbar and then clicking on something, like a leg, seems to work. However it doesn’t work when you click the foot or hand. You’d have to click a shin or toe instead.

you can use lightbulbs with crossscreen and a point at camera modifier as the particle object
I never used a path before but just did one so not THAT hard!

used sparks as basis, I always modify existing particle presets

Dear golly, my path drawing was absolutely horrendous!And it didn’t draw the picture, it made balls all along the whatever-I-drew and diudn’;t stay on the XZ axis.

you have to draw from top, front, side etc view, not with the camera or directors camera.
depends which particls emitter you choose what it does, where it falls or spurts up etc.
thats why I start with a preset that does some of what I want.
I drew on the ground looking down as I wanted lightbulb forming letters and not much movement from the point of origin
chose sparkles and modified it to not spread much, emit more and longer.
for blood dripping writing you might try simple water on a front view with a red texture for example.
it is all trial and error.
I had never done it before and found at least 5 ways not to do it before I succeeded.

Thanks, Wendy. I was using metaballs like Andy suggested, but it was only making spheres every couple inches. I couldn’t even tell I’d drawn a path at all. Maybe I need to up the influence or particle count?

I managed to draw a ROUGH path, but…why aren’t the particles getting stuck on it?cc the emitter just blasts them into the air all the way through.

HI LOH

here’s a quick example of particle writing,.  it’s a simple “Hello” written with the motion path tools, but should allow you to see the settings use in the particle emitter, and to rip it apart (experiment with) to try your ideas,.
try adjusting the motion path, to a different word or shape, or changing the colour of the particles over time. 

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/7907045/Particle_Writing.car

If you look at the settings for the particles, you’ll see that there are a lot of particles per second, (to make them more fluid and connected) and that they last for the entire length of the animation,..
the drawback to that is ... as the animation progresses, there are more particles to calculate, and that slows down the process.

rendering should be pretty quick.

Oh, It it. So my Velocity hasto be at 0 or the particles will just keep shooting up instead of staying on the line. Right? And you make the cured lines by adding points and then moing them?
e
Gimme an A, Mr. Andy! Gimme an A because I’m smart!

Today, I’e been playing with terrains. I learned two things about them. The first is, they’re so big that I can hardly tell if I’e made what I want or where I put it in the scene.

sAnd second, trying to paint my own map in Photoshop brings nasty results.

HI LOH

yes,.. you get an “A” + 

Whenever you make a particle system it’s important to think about the way the particles should move, or not,.. in the scene…
So, particle velocity and the dispersion angle, are just as important as how gravity and forces effect the particles during their lifetime.

The Motion path can be adjusted using the path tools to move points, and the little (bezier handles) allow you to change the curve shape,.. there’s also a “convert point” tool, to change from a smooth Bezier curve, to a sharp angled corner.

With terrain’s,.. or anything else,.. it’s important to start by using the right scene size,.
If you start with a Large scale scene,. then the default measurement will be in MILES,. and the default terrain will be 10000.ft

You can also us replicators, and terrains together to “Tile” a single terrain, to make a Massive terrain. (see pic)

Carrara has a really great set of “terrain shaders”, which allow you to create rocky and grassy areas and are dependent on parameters from the terrain, such as “slope angle”, height,  etc..

Just as with any shader,... you can change the simple “colour” in the shader,... to a texture map,. or a more complex mixer
It’s probably best not to use a single texture map to texture an entire landscape.

The terrain tools and Carrara’s mixers, can be used to create a semi-random (texture map - mix)  based on height , slope etc

also,.. if you select any object in the carrara scene,.. and hit “0” ..  the camera will “Zoom to fit” that object into the view.
Use the “Directors camera” for moving around in the scene,. you can also save camera positions, which you can then use with the other scene camera’s.

Also,...

for terrain building , it’s important to remember that you don’t need to make a single terrain which is massive and contains all the features your imagination can throw at it,..

You can make several different terrains,.. for example,. a desert plane area, using (one terrain),... with distant mountains using (another terrain)
you can also use other objects, like Infinite planes,. or Oceans (in the pro version) to fill gaps, or create lakes / seas.

NOTE : ..If you want to work with Human figure’s in a terrain,.. it;‘s best to use the Medium scale scene, then your camera movement and scale will be easier to work with.

the same principle applies to an animation with a smaller figure, like a bird or insect. or a snail….

Andy, Is that snail available in poser format ? or even OBJ as long as it has material zones.