Digital Art Zone

I use a macbook pro and am always frustrated when installing Carrara resources.
I’d love for some of the pros to give insight to best practices when it comes to installation and housekeeping in Carrara on mac and pc:

On tutorials by PhilW, Mark Bremmer, and others, their contents Browser in Carrara looks amazing and is chocked full of all kinds of goodness - and all of these goodies are organized. My content browser in carrara looks like the bargain bin at Walmart after a midnight madness sale.

At the risk of asking a dumb question - What are the best practices for installation for the different resouces?
I usually end up making it work one way or another - but I know it’s not optimum.

i.e.,
I bought brushes from dimension theory awhile back -
I would be great to have some up front installation steps like:
During installation you should install here (list path and folder) and then in the carrara browser you should do X and X.

of course this may vary with different resources…
There has gotta be a better way of doing this than the way i do it now. im thinking that I may not be the only one.

thank you everybody!

Nothing?

Give it time. People might have other things going on in the real world. As for myself, I’m in the same boat you are. But that’s me… Somewhat disorganized.

I have a similar question. Im on a mac also. firstly, in previous versions of carrara i could take all of the browser material out and have it never load, I rarely if ever use the wizard. i would navigate to where i put the browser material and open folders in the browser as i needed them for each different file. I cant seem to do that in car 8. its just easier to find things and have only what is germane to that file load, just more logical than scrolling thru stuff you dont need.. Anyway of doing that now? Also, any7way of having the newly created folders for the browser to load first and not at the bottom? I guess this is more of a customization question. I wont get into daz studio content i have found it a nitemare. thanx

The normal place to install Carrara stuff is to your Carrara program folder, so (on Windows) that would be something like c:\Program Files\Daz 3D\Carrara8.

Under that are a number of folders such as data, presets, scenes and content can appear in any of these - hopefully the installer will include a readme file which will tell you where.

You then need to add that folder (or folders) to your browser - on the right of the browser window you will find a dropdown list with Add Folder as one of the options.  I personally find this final step a little frustrating, I believe that folders should be scanned and added automatically each time the program is run (I also once lost all the references to installed content which was rather frustrating!).

I hope this makes sense - as to being organised, I’m not so sure….

For a lot of content, I create a directory called ‘Carrara Content’.  I then install new content into this folder.

This helps with managing collection of shaders, scenes, skies, and so on for easier system maintenance. Once the content has completed installing, I go to the object browser and select ‘File/Folder Menu’ icon then select ‘Add Folder’ and manuever to the location of the content.

This works well for backing up the content, and managing the folders.  It also works if you use multiple 3d Apps that can import/export carrara content.  You can do batch installs of content.

This doesn’t work for plug-ins.  It also doesn’t work if you like to use presets, you’ll have to use the object browser insted.  I’ve found it useful for managing content by vendors, content from downloads/sites, and my own custom content.  I’ve also used external drives to address periodic crashes.

Basically, if my system crashes I just reinstall the OS, then Install Carrara, then point the content browser to my external drives.  It’s a painless approach plus it frees up more space on my computer for virtual memory.

Hope this works.

The idea of using a separate directory that you then “add folder” to is what I always found useful- especially since I typically had at least three versions of C at a time. Putting stuff into the program folders results in duplication and “which version has that file”-itis.