►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄

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  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    I only noticed that because of the problems the server is having... it forgot to take me to the last page. Shortly after that DAZ3D.com was not even found. :(

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    wgdjohn said:

    I only noticed that because of the problems the server is having... it forgot to take me to the last page. Shortly after that DAZ3D.com was not even found. :(

    Yup. They're working very hard to get this fixed. They'll get it ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited December 2016

    I good way to make cheat sheets might be to copy/paste stuff from the ever-so-awesome manual.

    I've printed out the entire thing two-sided and bound the giant tome.

    It still brings me great pleasure to peruse through this weighty piece of work!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    could use a few cheatsheets to run through the laminator and tape to my monitors

    cribsheet smiley list of tweeners and what they do, modifiers list with short desc,
    list of every tick box under motion tablet and what they do, sans the TBD  lol

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    So if i understand correctly the my objects section is a lot like the custome categories in Studio. Its how you organize your content right?  I got my base categories set up there but haven't added any content yet.  I don't even know what all I have as far as Carrara content.  Question on content though, if I have something in my dazstudio content that shows up on the left and it doesn't have a thumbnail that shows up in the preview does that mean its just not visible to carrara and won't work?

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    So if i understand correctly the my objects section is a lot like the custome categories in Studio. Its how you organize your content right?  

    Yes. Except while we can use "Save As" and navigate there, we can also just click the folder in the browser and drag items from the instances tray (right side list of scene objects) directly into the browser.

     

    I got my base categories set up there but haven't added any content yet.  I don't even know what all I have as far as Carrara content.  

    Instead, these new categories are where we'd store things after we fix them to work in Carrara as well - not just "Carrara Content"

    For example, We've brought in Genesis and made him into a fine, Carrara optimized Michael 5 character - got him all set up for a nice render and now we want to save him so we can just drag him into any other scene we'd like to see him in.

    Go to the My Objects folders we've made. I have one called "People" and another that seems redundant: "Heroes"

    Well this guy is going to be a new Hero. So I'll go into my Heores folder and make a new Folder called: Big George, because that's what I've decided to name him. I'll open that folder and make a new one called: "Clothes and Props"

    Now we can drag the character, himself, into his own folder

    • click on the folder in the browser
    • if it's a new folder that doesn't show, use the File/Folder menu (top right of the browser) and "Update Folder"
    • Drag the character directly into the empty space in the browser 
    • Change the name if needed

    =============================================================================

    When I do this (create a new Hero file), I optimized the figure in shape and shaders, pick out a good costume and hair and optimize all of that - remembering to Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders - and give the character three lights - one from behind and two from the front, one crossing from each side - and teo cameras: One close up on the face, one showing from the thighs up

    Now I organize all of that stuff into a nice order and Group (Ctrl + G) it all together and name the group the name of the Character - Like Big George, in this example.

    Inside this group, I select all of the clothing and Group that - and call that group: Clothing

    I next set all of the lights to Only affect: and then choose the new group: "Big George" for example, in the drop down so that when I drag this character into a scene, he has his own lighting that only affects him - in addition to being lit by the scene lighting.

    Anyways, I'm writing a more formal article on this whoile thing with illustration to help.

    So by the time I'm done, I have this whole Character saved into his main folder.

    When I make a new costume for him, I'll drag the "Clothing" group into the main character's "Clothing" folder in the browser, so I can store complete outfits in one small file. 

    This really gets beneficial when making costumes for groups of people, like background people, teams of helpful friendlies and swarms of minions whom follow our bad guy!

     

    Question on content though, if I have something in my dazstudio content that shows up on the left and it doesn't have a thumbnail that shows up in the preview does that mean its just not visible to carrara and won't work?

    Not sure. When in doubt, open a new empty medium scene and drag it into the instances tray from the browser - see if it works

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited January 2017
    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    So if i understand correctly the my objects section is a lot like the custome categories in Studio. Its how you organize your content right?  

    Yes. Except while we can use "Save As" and navigate there, we can also just click the folder in the browser and drag items from the instances tray (right side list of scene objects) directly into the browser.

     

    I got my base categories set up there but haven't added any content yet.  I don't even know what all I have as far as Carrara content.  

    Instead, these new categories are where we'd store things after we fix them to work in Carrara as well - not just "Carrara Content"

    For example, We've brought in Genesis and made him into a fine, Carrara optimized Michael 5 character - got him all set up for a nice render and now we want to save him so we can just drag him into any other scene we'd like to see him in.

    Go to the My Objects folders we've made. I have one called "People" and another that seems redundant: "Heroes"

    Well this guy is going to be a new Hero. So I'll go into my Heores folder and make a new Folder called: Big George, because that's what I've decided to name him. I'll open that folder and make a new one called: "Clothes and Props"

    Now we can drag the character, himself, into his own folder

    • click on the folder in the browser
    • if it's a new folder that doesn't show, use the File/Folder menu (top right of the browser) and "Update Folder"
    • Drag the character directly into the empty space in the browser 
    • Change the name if needed

    =============================================================================

    When I do this (create a new Hero file), I optimized the figure in shape and shaders, pick out a good costume and hair and optimize all of that - remembering to Edit > Remove Unused Masters > Consolidate Duplicate Shaders - and give the character three lights - one from behind and two from the front, one crossing from each side - and teo cameras: One close up on the face, one showing from the thighs up

    Now I organize all of that stuff into a nice order and Group (Ctrl + G) it all together and name the group the name of the Character - Like Big George, in this example.

    Inside this group, I select all of the clothing and Group that - and call that group: Clothing

    I next set all of the lights to Only affect: and then choose the new group: "Big George" for example, in the drop down so that when I drag this character into a scene, he has his own lighting that only affects him - in addition to being lit by the scene lighting.

    Anyways, I'm writing a more formal article on this whoile thing with illustration to help.

    So by the time I'm done, I have this whole Character saved into his main folder.

    When I make a new costume for him, I'll drag the "Clothing" group into the main character's "Clothing" folder in the browser, so I can store complete outfits in one small file. 

    This really gets beneficial when making costumes for groups of people, like background people, teams of helpful friendlies and swarms of minions whom follow our bad guy!

     

    Question on content though, if I have something in my dazstudio content that shows up on the left and it doesn't have a thumbnail that shows up in the preview does that mean its just not visible to carrara and won't work?

    Not sure. When in doubt, open a new empty medium scene and drag it into the instances tray from the browser - see if it works

    I'm going to do a practice character following this.  Sound like its an invaluable tool!

  • That Other PersonaThat Other Persona Posts: 381
    edited January 2017

    Argh.

    Have had Carrara running well on my machine for years.

    Trying to set up a new machine and well, no smart content.  I'm on a Mac.

    Any link to info on getting content running?  I know there is a thread but I can't fnd it.

     

    Downloaded DIM and ran it like normal.  Installed Carrara 64bit, then downloaded content.  Lft the insall location at default.  

    Presets and such show in the browser, but no smart content at all.

     

    Post edited by That Other Persona on
  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    I found I had to go into DS and rebuild the content database. For some reason Carrara didn't see the initial install. Also, do make sure you have 8.5.1 build 19, since earlier versions don't use the current data engine.

  • Uninstalled everything and started over, but this time only downloaded a couple of purchased items to save time.  Still no joy.

    Ran DS and updated the DB.  Stuff shows up in Carrara in the Content tab and loads fine, but nothing shows in the Smart Content tab.  My other computer has stuff under Smart Content and is easy to browse.  

    When I first ran Carrara, I got an error about Daz Content Management not running.  After updating the DB that message has gone away, but still nothing but an alphabetical list under Smart Content, with no files under them.  

     

    Frustrating.

     

  • Success.  Even had a nice mail exchange with Daz.

    As it was a new computer still in the initial stages of set-up, I just re-installed MacOS and started from scratch.

    Install DIM.  Install Daz3D.  Install Postgre CMS.  Open Daz and sign in.  Install Carrara.  Installed Carrara content.  Installed a test purchase or two.  Everything looks great.

    Nice to be up and running on the new machine (actually a lesser model than my "old" one, which will now be used for rendering).  Will go through this process later this year once they update the Mac mini. . .

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    Success.  Even had a nice mail exchange with Daz.

    As it was a new computer still in the initial stages of set-up, I just re-installed MacOS and started from scratch.

    Install DIM.  Install Daz3D.  Install Postgre CMS.  Open Daz and sign in.  Install Carrara.  Installed Carrara content.  Installed a test purchase or two.  Everything looks great.

    Nice to be up and running on the new machine (actually a lesser model than my "old" one, which will now be used for rendering).  Will go through this process later this year once they update the Mac mini. . .

    Whew! Sweet!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited January 2017

    Awesome!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • I forgot one step!

    Upon the initial launch of Carrara, it asked if I wanted to auto-detect runtimes.  As I hadn't installed anything yet, I clicked no.  After installing tons of stuff, I would get a window seeking a link to a file (never specified) whenever I tried to load anything.  Under the Content tab, right side button (black), click auto-detect runtimes.  Solved.

    The trick seems to be in the ordering.  I must have inadvertantly done something wrong (quite common for me, actually) and things got messed up.  The installation today was almost as smooth as silk.  Now I need a shader . . . 


    Hi Dartanbeck.  

    Sometimes I feel like I am losing my mind; two steps forward, five or six backwards.  

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited February 2017

    It gets easier and better with practice ;)

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,017

    Updated CarraraCafe frontpage feature to show a link to the first page of this, thanks Dart:

    http://carraracafe.com/

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,017

    Updated CarraraCafe frontpage feature to show a link to the first page of this, thanks Dart:

    http://carraracafe.com/

    and the tutorials front page http://carraracafe.com/tutorials-2/

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited October 2017

    Thank you, 3drendero, for being here for us. Your hard work does not go unnoticed!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • jan_8a6b444a69jan_8a6b444a69 Posts: 43
    edited October 2017

    Hello all together,

    today i bought Carrara 8.5 Pro edition, because i hope that it can help me in my actual project. I have a foto, and i want to make a 3d reproduction which is as similar as possible.
    Until now i work with daz studio, but it has its borders. And in addition of that, it is not easy to remember "that" special slider you need at the moment when it is important. And which both of the 200 you need together when you want "that" special effect. Everyone who ever worked with DS knows what i mean.

    I hope this program will help me, and i hope there is any possibility to import the work i made so far.

    Greets from Germany
    Jan

    Post edited by jan_8a6b444a69 on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    Awesome! Welcome aboard! yes

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited November 2017

    Food for thought

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Hello all together,

    today i bought Carrara 8.5 Pro edition, because i hope that it can help me in my actual project. I have a foto, and i want to make a 3d reproduction which is as similar as possible.
    Until now i work with daz studio, but it has its borders. And in addition of that, it is not easy to remember "that" special slider you need at the moment when it is important. And which both of the 200 you need together when you want "that" special effect. Everyone who ever worked with DS knows what i mean.

    I hope this program will help me, and i hope there is any possibility to import the work i made so far.

    Greets from Germany
    Jan

    I save characters with clothing, hair, posed etc. as a scene subset and load it into Carrara via Content/"where I save subsets".  First things I do is to Consolidate shaders/textures and then save it... drag to my objects and save as a Carrara scene file.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited December 2019

     

    Sweet! Thanks for reminding me that I need to go through all of the challenges and make link categories in here for those awesome tomes of Carrara techniques!

     

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • Bunyip02Bunyip02 Posts: 7,482
    edited May 2019
    Post edited by Bunyip02 on
  • Here it is, Oct, 2019 . . . and I attemptemted to install Carrara 8.5.1 Pro 64 Bit into Mac's new operating system, Catalina. Well, it's no go! So, it's back to OS X. I had to re-install this version of Carrara on a partition. Successful! However, I can't see any of my content in Carrara's browser. Forgive me . . . I've read through some of your article and some posts. But I still can't get it into my browser. Please Help!

     

    Stephen

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    Here it is, Oct, 2019 . . . and I attemptemted to install Carrara 8.5.1 Pro 64 Bit into Mac's new operating system, Catalina. Well, it's no go! So, it's back to OS X. I had to re-install this version of Carrara on a partition. Successful! However, I can't see any of my content in Carrara's browser. Forgive me . . . I've read through some of your article and some posts. But I still can't get it into my browser. Please Help!

     

    Stephen

    Hey Stephen, sorry for the delay. 

    I don't know a thing about MacOS. Maybe if I say some things about the browser in Windows, you'll be able to discover what's (not) going on.

    First, the main Carrara browser full of sample items, scenes, modifiers, particles, etc., etc., is in the Carrara 8 Native Content installer, not the Carrara 8.5 Native Content (which is only upgrades to the browser for Carrara 8.5)

    That's probably the thing. 

    I have also created an extensive custom browser for my own creations (and some stuff I get from other places, like ShareCG, friends, etc.,) which, in Windows, is created in the My Documents > Daz 3D > Carrara 8.5 > My Presets folder. I have an article about that here:

    Your Carrara Browser
    Making great stuff isn't as cool if you can't remember where you put it. Let's get some good habits going right from the start

    Along those same lines, I also LOVE using DIM to organize my content in a way that's easiest for ME to find and use. Mostly, I keep all Daz Studio content in the default Daz Studio Library. It's my extensive collections of Poser format content that I divide into different Runtime libraries for organization:

    Daz Install Manager - Installing Custom Poser Runtimes
    Basic walkthrough of designing your own custom runtime structure

    I really hope some of this helps ;)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited February 2020

    I've been making little changes and fixes here and there when I find the time. The new Table of Contents pages (here and on page 1) are a bit more reflective of the changes we've had in Plugins recently ~ with a new area to help make them easier to find. I still have a lot of things to add and correct in here. Whew... I've forgotten what a Beast I've created! LOL

    Looking at this thing, I see that I've never got back to reorganize like I wanted to. A lot of the info is just mashed in where I could. Hopefully I'll be able to make this a bit more comprehisible.

    I'm also excited to add a bunch of new links to stuff that these pages are missing. A lot has happened in this Carrara Discussion Forum since I was actively adding to this manual!

    Cheers all!

    Dartanbeck

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099
    edited September 2020

    New lessons, demonstrations, videos and articles at Dartanbeck.com

    Hope to see you there!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,099

    Starry Sky For Carrara is now FREE!!!

    The product that got me signed as a Daz 3D Premier Artist, having Carrara I was eager to find a way to animate the celestial sphere over our nighttime heads but, alas - when I asked everybody (and I mean Everybody) directed me to Hubble images.

    My daughter's kidneys were failing so I had a lot of waiting time in hospitals - often very far from home. My new laptop and Carrara in hand, I went to work and created my own system for adding realistically placed 3D stars all the way arond the scene in every direction. It started out kinda crude, but really cool. So I kept tweaking on it. Before long it turned into something great! 

    With what I said earlier about everybody telling me to use image maps, it occurred to me that other folks might like something like this as well. So I went to work to turning it into more of what I'd expect if I bought it from Daz 3D - totally not setting my sights on Daz 3D... they're the Best. But if I wanted my product to live up to my standards, even if it was a freebie, I wanted it to install nice and be packages profesionally. 

    By this point I had downloaded a Lot of freebies. What that meant is that my Runtime libraries were a mess inside. Folks would put there stuff anywhere they wanted. So I looked long and hard at the Carrara browser structure and wondered how I could install files in a manner that would make it easy on anyone installing it. I mean, I didn't want  folks to have to "Add Folder" or any of that. So I decided to simply inject everything into existing directories in the browser - so after it's installed, just look under Scenes > Space, and there it is!!!

    Anyway, my awesome wife, Rosie, told me to send it to Daz 3D first - otherwise I might just regret it. So I did and the rest is history! (literally since family issues kept me from continuing my 3D Authoring production, so my store at Daz 3D was closed - with class, though. Daz 3D was incredible and I feel so fortunate to have worked with such an amazing team of artists!)

    The following link takes you to the new product page with the original description that was in my Daz 3D store and the pdf manual is available at the bottom of the page (and included with the product)

    Download Starry Sky for Carrara

    Messing around with the included individual star models and some volumetric clouds to create what I have named: The Crazy Eight Nebula

    It even works great with Carrara's Realistic Skies!

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