Carrara Characters
MatCreator
Posts: 215
Hello all, would really appreciate your thoughts and opinions on this.
I notice there arent any characters/figures that are made for use in Carrara..... I mean, figures that are native to (or created/rigged in) Carrara???
Is this because everyone is happy enough with using Poser/Studio figures? What are the pros/cons of Carrara figures? Surely there must be some program specific feature in Carrara that we could exploit and take advantage of? Is the Poser/Studio figure rig "better"? Or is it that there is simply no need since the Poser rig and features are good enough??? Was the original MetaCreations plan to use Poser for content/rigging and then to use Carrara as the rendering/composing part?
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You mean you haven't downloaded and featured the cyclopstritch in all of your recent renders?
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/135826/free-cyclopstrich-studio-version-coming-soon-carrara-figure
LOL
The Carrara rigging system is excellent for use within Carrara.
That would be two thumbs up. I like it very much. The skeleton and rigging are very straightforward. The weightpainting is very flexible. Morph zones and morphs can be made independently of body parts. Morphs can be edited in the posed position. Vertexes can be influenced by more than two bones. And more. I create my own Carrara-specific figures for my own use.
Having said that, I can understand why people make figures using the Studio fomat. There is a larger user base. If the figures are morphs of either Genesis or Geneis 2, then they are still compatible with Carrara, but can also use the autofit function and the transfer utility in Studio for more flexibility, even if the ultimate use is in Carrara.
EDIT: The cyclopstritch is free!
My Dino character was created for Carrara only and rigged in Carrara.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1861826/#Comment_1861826
That dino is excellent.
MatCreator's point is a good one, that there are not Carrara-native figures for sale by Daz. If you look through the challenge WIP threads, you will see a great many figures (and props) rigged within Carrara for use in Carrara. Here are some of mine, which generally are done in a toon or stylized theme. Hopefully, my models, rigging, and posing have improved over time.
There are examples of more realistic figures. If I remember correctly, BooksbyDavid had a very realistic spaceman figure.
The following are all from the challenge threads
Cards from an unusual deck
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. Pulp Mercurese Falcon
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. Robot tribute to Silent Running
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. Graphic Novel - 1st Appearance of Brash Lonergan (and 1st mesh version)
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Here are a few more custom figures rigged during the challenges
. Game: Get off my lawn!
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.Wild West: Frontier World (tribute to Westworld)
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. Carrara 9 Give us a sign: Pilot of 9-balloon
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And here is my thread on my custom characters, Brash Lonergan and Moxie Espinoza. I offer this not as an example of good work, but instead if you read the thread you will see people very gently encourage me to make better use of my time. They point out that my efforts to create custom characters, while laudible, are diverting valuable time away from telling the story. It would be much easier to simply create custom character morphs for Daz Figures, rather than making all of the phoneme and pose correction morphs myself for each figure.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/104646/my-project-brash-lonergan-adventures/p1
And here is my thread on my custom characters, Brash Lonergan and Moxie Espinoza. I offer this not as an example of good work, but instead if you read the thread you will see people very gently encourage me to make better use of my time. They point out that my efforts to create custom characters, while laudible, are diverting valuable time away from telling the story. It would be much easier to simply create custom character morphs for Daz Figures, rather than making all of the phoneme and pose correction morphs myself for each figure.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/104646/my-project-brash-lonergan-adventures/p1
But its my time to waste.
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for me personally, beinag able to create and use morph injs is the native figure drawback.
The thing with Carrara is that we can actually design custom morphs on the fly and either keep the new morphs with the main figure save or not - a decision which can be made by each individual user, which is a HUGE boon, not a drawback.
The big prevention in such a figure is the fact that Carrara is vastly less popular than Daz Studio and/or Poser, so it might be hard to find a publisher willing to sell it.
...and with Poser/Daz Studio figures being free to those owning the respective software, it might be a hard sell anyways unless it was completely free.
All Daz3d figures have a HUGE support base - even the first generation. (Generation 1 and 2 stuff fit each other) and all have quite a number of Free support goodies available. So it's kinda hard to compete with such a thing.
yeah, but, if there was a native carrara figure, pa couldn't offer geometry mods for it. ?
Only the original PA, unless it came with an Open Source or some sort of GNU license to share the mesh, because the original mesh info would be saved with the new. It's how Carrara writes its saves.
Would probably work better to make a new figure which loads in either Poser or Daz Studio and use their technology for loading it into Carrara - CR2 or DUF
But make it entirely so that it works beautifully in Carrara and use that as part of its selling point. Then any PA can make support for it.
Actually, I think people could make morphs for a custom Carrara figure just like they could for the Daz millenium man and woman (M1 and V1) back in the day. If I remember correctly, people offered obj files, which were then loaded in the morph channel. Similarly, there is a load from obj option in the morph area for Carrara. Misty is right about the challenge to loading a whole set of such custom morphs at once. I have no idea if a plugin could be developed to automate the process of identifying the correct morph area, creating a new morph, naming and editing that morph, and loading the obj - then repeating for all the morphs in the pack.
EDIT - To anticipate an issue - people making morphs only need the obj, not the figure's rigging. Sharing the morphs is not the same as sharing the rigged and weightmapped figure.
Yeah, believe it or not, I still have some of those old millenium woman obj morphs (Victoria 1) on my computer. I fired up Poser, loaded Victoria 1, chose the head, and then went through the steps of loading a morph by obj. Here, I loaded a morph called elf ears 3. Wow, we thought that was amazing back in the day. Probably should have deleted these files as part of a geenral cleanup of my drive.
The same way of offering morphs could be done with a Carrara native figure. The only issue is lack of batch installation, as Misty has pointed out.
As long as exporting those morphs doesn't require (the usual) exporting of the entire mesh... sure. Otherwise... Argh,, why am I nay-saying! I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer!
Still, even if we had to (as a development workflow) had to use either Poser or Daz Studio to put the figure into CR2 format, which works very well with Carrara, I think that would be the way to go, as it would give futue content designers the simple tools via either DS or Poser to make additional content for the figure(s).
That's certainly the direction I would go - much like the older 3D Universe "Generations" figures or Predatron's LoRez or other stand-alone figures. We could still create INJ morps and such, just as they did for those figures and Generation 4 (and 3), and have the power of DS's Morph Loader Pro and Transfer Utility to assist in setting up the otherwise more difficult aspects of the process.
Even using these tools, the figure could still come with a Carrara installer, with the figure all set up in Carrara, optimized to use either joint rotation or IK and with several shader preset versions. Even Carrara hair presets. This could work great for humans or animals or other creatures and such, I think.
Great idea MC!!!
By the way, by your asking, I have a feeling you have something in the works?
Just devil's advocate, it is a matter of up front PITA vs back end PITA. The question was about the possibility of using Carrara's rigging. Putting it in Poser CR2 or Daz duf means not using Carrara's rigging. It means using Poser's or Studio's rigging. Rigging and weightpainting a custom figure in Poser or Studio requires a lot of extra steps up front, including creating body part groups that match the bone files -and typically are symmetric weightpaintig. PITA!!!!!! Have you noticed the big gap in time between the release of the initial Carrara Cyclopstritch and the promised Studio rigged version? If the worry is distributing morphs using Carrara's rigging, you can use the same morph approach as Daz used for full body morphs for Vicky 1 and 2. The inj pose files was a way to do batch installs, not a way to avoid copright issues (I don't think). Using Carrara's native rigging and native morph dials means that future content creators can use Carrara, and do not need to use another program as a plugin.
However, it may be convenient to use Studio or Poser because of the existing content and plugins that are compatible with figures made for those products and the much greater user base. But that is a different set of reasons than the actual rigging technology itself. Carrara's rigging is simple and flexible - two thumbs up
Agreed. One of these days I'll have to show you some of my crazy experiments I've done with it. It blew me away how powerful, yet incredibly simple the Carrara rigging system is for our everyday 3d animation needs.
Thanks for the input... I can see why the following floats to poser/studio, the already existing amount of content is enormous.
For me, I've been out the loop for some 6 some odd years now, and already see that the poser way of things is fading. The whole Genesis thing is hew to me too, but already I see a huge advantage, but it's all native to studio. Im starting to have fun with Genesis in Carrara now, but none the less, it's studio features being used in Carrara.
Personally, I think I'm fading out of poser and Bryce altogether, making carrara more and more my main app now. Honestly, if not for the new renderer of studio, I'd not have bothered at all, at the core I only use it for the characters anyway. But those features we rely on, are not carrara. Now, I'm modeling with voxels, so the perfect poly symmetry doesn't exist, and the grouping required by poser out the window, I'd rather not think of carrara as a workaround...
I have to see, I was curious how the whole morph thing is handled, I will investigate further, but yes, I have many ideas for pose able things, they just can't be done in poser/studio. Fine by me, but I need to learn the Carrara way.
Or are we establishing that now?!?!?!?!?
I hear ya. I don't think of Carrara as a workaround, but I still like the Generation 4 Daz figures (M4, V4, Freak 4, Aiko 4, etc.,) a lot for the simplicity of use, but Genesis and the newer Daz Studio certainly has made things easier for a modeler to get into making support items for Genesis, but at the same time making it easier to create custom figures and still use the tools to make support items for those new figures as well - anybody could too, not just the original author. So it's pretty exciting.
Here's a tutorial I did a while back.
Carrara to DAZ Studio, DAZ Studio to Carrara workflow for editing and/or creating new conforming clothing for Genesis figures. I'm demonstrating Genesis 2, but the process is the same for Genesis 1, with the exception that Genesis 1 already includes Male and Female shapes within - making it even easier.
After I demonstrate the basics of bringing the model (made in Carrara) into DAZ Studio and turning it into a Triax rigged conforming item, I then demonstrate the use of a separate product (link below): Genesis 2 Cross-Figure Resource Kit, by DAZ 3D, to convert the male version of the shirt into one which properly fits and follows Genesis 2 Females. After that I demonstrate how to detach the skeleton (rigging) of an existing product so that we may edit the model to fit someone else, for use in what this whole tutorial was all about. So you should get a pretty comfortable set of skills towards this endeavor from this single video. I will be revisiting the topic later, I'm sure. But for now, good fortune, and have fun! :)
- Video Tutorial
- Link to the "Genesis 2 Cross-Figure Resource Kit"
At the very end of the tutorial I mention that I am going to attempt to convert Hongyu's V5 Shirt (Genesis 1 model) into a Genesis 2 Male conforming cloth, so that I can use the Cross-Figure resource kit to finally end up with one that fits Genesis 2 Female, and hopefully my G2F character.
Here is the finished result after crossing it over to Genesis 2 Female but I didn't actually make a 'tuck into pants' morph yet. Instead I used Carrara's 3D paint to paint an alpha mask where the shirt and pants intersect, which works really nice in this situation
So I'm not really 'pushing' the idea for using Daz Studio kind of as a plugin to a Carrara workflow, but I am trying to point out that the technology certainly is there to help - and help I think it can!
But beyond all of that, one day I do still intend to make some of my own, more traditional 3D character models that don't need morphs to change who they are - just morphs to make them animate nicely, and not worry about compatibility with other clothes, because the outfits will be modeled right into the character. I don't ever need them to be nude. Same with the hair - they'll either use Carrara dynamic hair or the mesh will just be part of the figure along with nice animation rigging assists.
So I'm certainly not trying to deter anyone from making Carrara-specific figures - heavens no. I'm just saying that they may not be the most marketable item - but who knows? It really depend on how well it turns out, doesn't it?
I guess, original custom figures must be so much excellent as DAZ figures: in that case they will be marketable.
There is a huge difference between creating a character for use in your own images and animations, and one which you can market and sell more generally. Carrara is great for the former, you can model your character to the detail required for your project, rig it pretty easily, create just the morphs you need and away you go. For a commercial figure, there is so much more that you would need to do - the model would have to be more carefully constructed, more detailed, way more morphs created for it, etc. Even then, to be successful, you really need lots of third party support. I mean, there is nothing wrong with the Hivewire figures, but their level of support in terms of clothing, poses, characters etc is a tiny fraction of what Daz's characters have. And when all is said and done, Carrara has a small market compared with Daz Studio. So there is nothing technically preventing Carrara-native characters, but economically it wouldn't make a lot of sense, not when most people will still use Daz's characters.
In this particular case I was referring to custom 3D figures in General, not just Carrara native figures. Carrara's figures in any case can not compete with the Daz figures.
Could Carrara native characters compete with native Studio characters? That would be a strong no... Studio is FREE, and the amount of content already available is tremendous. But for me, the purpose is not to compete, we can and should however continue to add to the Carrara market.
I suppose, as much as we hate, we have to admit that Poser/Studio figures have "more" easily accessible features and options than Carrara figures. And by now we are pretty much spoiled, lol...
Still, as I am way more a creative type than a technical type, I know Carraras rigging system can easily handle voxel models, and unless I learn to retop Im "stuck". But If I did create a Carrara figure, I would want to offer morphs and poses and texture variations, and how to create AND distribute that is what I need to learn.
Poser/Studio rigging is not an easy task =/ It is a very involving and detailed process. I just dont have it in me anymore, lol But there is a Carrara market. No reason why poseable presets shouldnt be offered as well.
Lets see, lol
Retopologizing (and UV-ing) is an Art (creative process, if you will) in itself, so you should be fine there
well one solution could be to base these characters on Makehuman.
its fully opensource and loads rigged into Carrara so its really just a matter of sculpting morphing the mesh like they do with Genesis etc with the added bonus of being fully redistributable.
one can use attach skeleton for clothes, its just a pity one cannot save the weightmaps so any clothes would need to be shared attached to a figure once tidied up with the weightbrush.
I used Makehuman figures before DS figures and made targets for them
But making targets for makehuman figures is not so pleasant as make targets for DS figures. Now Manuel Bastioni Lab fully integrated Blender addon is available:
https://youtu.be/4T91Q-g2urY
Amen to that. I haven't followed this discussion closely, so maybe its been mentioned already, but ... the Gen4 characters have a very large number of high quality, affordable add-ons, many hundreds of which I own. They work very nicely in Carrara. I am not a modeler but only interested in creating short Carrara animations with a minimum of fuss with the (purchased) 3D elements. I have very little incentive to switch, and in fact never thought much about "Carrara characters" until this discussion. Carrara format props and such are great, no need to redo lgihting, cameras, etc. But the Gen4 characters and add-ons are, for me, the right balance of quality, cost and usability.
So why try and compete with Daz Studio figures?
Do something entirely original! That's kind of why I brought up 3DU's Generation Toons. Not to say to make Toon figures, but to put it out there that, at the time, Generations didn't have a whole lot of competition in that field.
I would bet that Vyusur's Dino would make a LOT of sales. maybe not compareable to, say Victoria 7, but possibly more than something else, like a spider or something. Look for gaps in what's currently available.
Then, instead of just having the figure, have it come with it's own scene presets. Make a Carrara-specific figure release something much more than what other offering are getting the user. For example, the Dino could come with a small outdoor scene with some trees and a drinking pond (?)