Animation and Compositing in Carrara?

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Comments

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311
    edited February 2013

    Some of the best Carrara Plug-ins are free :)

    http://www.sparrowhawke3d.com/

    And, when compared to other 3D software,. the plug-ins available for Carrara are "REALLY" low priced.


    Also,... you should use Carrara "as it comes" and explore what it can do,.. until you reach some limitation, and then look at expanding the functions using plug-ins.

    Unless there's something which you want to do, that requires a plug-in it do it. right now.

    Most Carrara "Products" in the Daz Store, don't sell in the same Volume as Daz Studio products, or Poser products do,. so, it's harder for Daz3D to offer them as part of the PC club, and still make any money.

    But,.. there is a discount right now on the main Carrara software,. which is a big saving on the full price, and is probably worth the cost of a One month, PC membership.

    Occasionally, you'll see a "Sale" on a particular vendor's products,. (I think Howie had a sale recently) , or , when a new version of Carrara is released, there's often an accompanying sale of Carrara products.

    The biggest issue (IMO) is that Carrara users can make much of their own "Scene" items, since Carrara has built in modellers, Generators, and functions which Poser or DS don't have, like an animated Ocean, Terrains, or the Plant editor, Volumetric clouds,. Particle systems, replicators and surface replicators. etc....

    :)

    Post edited by 3DAGE on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,106
    edited December 1969

    Superdog said:
    I'm looking through the Carrara content and plugins and, unless I'm mistaken, virtually none of it is DAZ or Platinum Club (no DAZ or PC signs under the products in the shop) so apart from Mimic Pro it doesn't seem worth joining up. That's a bit disappointing. I suppose it might be worth joining for the Genesis content.
    Joining Platinum Club on a yearly basis has saved me hundreds of dollars. Granted, I really Really like every one of Jack Tomalin's products - most of which can be purchased for 1.99 for PCMs. Petipet is either new to our Daz scene, or goes by a new name, who used to be known as Geek-at-Play, when I first bought the Aircraft Needle. I've collected all of his air and starships since - and they are of very high quality. 1.99 hair products are the perfect solution for outfitting various background characters and then we come to Lisa. Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. I buy all of Lisa's Botanicals. Talk about quality! Not to mention the sneak peak sales (getting to buy pre-released products at a discount) and additional freebies. PC membership is huge, if you need content.
  • jaxtonejaxtone Posts: 73
    edited December 1969

    exactly how did you manage to export M4 animated obj seq from DAZ to After FX?

    Jack

    3DAGE said:
    I totally agree 100% :)

    compositing in a video editor gives you more abilities,.

    I've been playing with the new "Element 3D" from Videocopilot,. and so far I'm really impressed.

    I managed to export an M4 (animated OBJ sequence) and load it into After Effects using Element 3D,. although I'm still playing with it and haven't rendered anything worth showing here, but it's a ground breaking game changer as fas as I can see.

    EP,... you should have a look at the example videos on www,videocopilot.net and check out the Metropolitan City pack, built for use in Element 3D

    There are some issues with it (no ray-tracing), so objects dont reflect the things around them,. but you can use environment maps or even layers in AE,

  • argus1000argus1000 Posts: 701
    edited December 1969

    Doesn't anybody use Premiere anymore? I hear about Sony Vegas.I hear about Final Cut Pro. I hear about Hitfilm. I almost never hear about Premiere Pro. Has this app got any less power or flexibility than the others? I had to go through a learning curve for Premiere. Was all that in vain?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    argus1000 said:
    Doesn't anybody use Premiere anymore? I hear about Sony Vegas.I hear about Final Cut Pro. I hear about Hitfilm. I almost never hear about Premiere Pro. Has this app got any less power or flexibility than the others? I had to go through a learning curve for Premiere. Was all that in vain?

    Except for Final Cut Pro, I think the others are cheaper. At least that's my assumption.

  • cyborgty_074ff6c243cyborgty_074ff6c243 Posts: 132
    edited December 1969

    argus1000 said:
    Doesn't anybody use Premiere anymore? I hear about Sony Vegas.I hear about Final Cut Pro. I hear about Hitfilm. I almost never hear about Premiere Pro. Has this app got any less power or flexibility than the others? I had to go through a learning curve for Premiere. Was all that in vain?

    Except for Final Cut Pro, I think the others are cheaper. At least that's my assumption.

    I agree. Also, Adobe has gone to a subscription based model, which has turn some people off.
    For my post production needs, I primarily use Adobe Premiere and After Effects CS5. But I started looking at Sony Vegas / Hitfilm for future use because I'm not sure about whether I should justify paying for an Adobe subscription in-order to get the updated versions of their software.

  • MukiMuki Posts: 8
    edited December 1969

    Hi there
    Any body knows how i can insert a video back ground in cacarra 8.5 pro?
    muki

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Hi there
    Any body knows how i can insert a video back ground in cacarra 8.5 pro?
    muki

    It's pretty easy. First off, you'll want to make sure that the aspect ratio of the video is the same as the final render. Meaning, if it's a widescreen video want for a backdrop, then the rendered output will need to be widescreen.

    Here's how I like to do it:

    1) Go to the View Menu and enable Show Production Frame.

    2) Go to the Interactive Renderer (it's the little up-arrow within a circle icon at the top right of the Assembly Room window) and enable the Show Backdrop Option.

    3) Select the Scene at the top of the Instances palette at the right side of the screen.

    4) With the Scene selected, at the top of the screen, choose the Effects tab and then choose the pulldown menu for the Backdrop. Choose Map from the list.

    5) Click the Load folder icon next to the area where the thumbnail will be displayed.

    When you have the video loaded it should now be in you production frame.

    My next post will show you how to get a shadow catcher.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    I like to use an object with a shadow catcher to help with shadows and masking.

    A shadow catcher is a lighting model in the Texture room and can be applied to any object in your scene just like a shader. When a shadow catcher is applied to an object it becomes invisible except for any shadows that fall on it. It also acts as a mask, in that if there is another object behind the shadow catcher object is hidden. If there is an object embedded in a shadow catcher object, the part of the object within the shadow catcher object is invisible.

    In my examples, I placed a plane primitive into the scene to represent ground. I applied a shadow catcher shader to the plane. I placed a sphere into the scene with the default shader to cast shadows and demonstrate how a shadow catcher can act as a mask. As you can see from the screen shots, the shader really only needs the Shadow Catcher lighting model. All the other functions can be turned off as it doesn't catche reflections, etc.

    I did move the default distant light to approximate the angle of light in the scene and I added soft shadows to the light. I also added a second light to the scene set at 50% and restricted it to the shadow catcher plane so the shadows weren't as deep.

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  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    EP,
    Did you already check “Catch Global Illumination” and “Catch Caustics” ?
    Which are the examples of use ?

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    I did not check either of those. There are two lights in the scene. The primary distant light uses soft shadows and the second distant light was restricted to the shadow catcher and was set at around 30% or 50%. I can't remember which exactly.

    The light that was restricted to the shadow catcher pointed straight down. I used it to lighten the shadows so that they matched the back drop a bit better. Since this was a quick example, I didn't do that great a job. This one is better:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8puXTRXt7Y

  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945
    edited December 1969

    I had seen another with you and a dinosaur...:-)

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    I had seen another with you and a dinosaur...:-)

    That one I didn't use the shadowcatcher!

    I either didn't know about the shadow catcher or it wasn't in C5, which is what I used to make the dinosaur eating me. I'm going to assume I didn't know about it, as I was very new to Carrara when I made that. I faked a shadow by creating a shadowy blob in Photoshop and then using that as a layer in my video editor and distorting, translating and having it follow the motion of the dinosaur by manually keyframing all that stuff.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taejI7yb2R0

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