Has it Really Been 4 Years Since a Release?

kryten

UnifiedBrain said:

I think that there is always something to complain about regarding any software, updated or not.

We good consumers are programmed to believe that unless a software product is "updated" every year or so, that it is "dead."  To me, that is just nonsense.  Unfortunately, it gives rise to the idea that "if I can't figure out how to do something in Carrara, it must be because it hasn't been updated properly."  People seem to constantly underestimate the depth and functionality of Carrara.

I've read so many threads here in the forum which illustrate this issue.  At least 50% of the time - and probably even greater than that - people post to complain that Carrara is lacking a certain function, only to have several regular Carrara users chime in saying that Carrara indeed not only has that function, but that it works very well.

I also wonder when I hear complaints about not having access to the latest Daz character generations.  Is Misty and her work invisible?

I took a quick look at Misty's work for new generations and it looks like its way too involved. I don't want to have to do anything in DAZ Studio to open a figure, clothing, textures, etc. in Carrara. If iCarrara was updated to import directly it would be awesome. Four years with no updates on software that I invested a lot of time and money in is sad... I think the "complaining" is justified.

Inkubo

@kryten, I may have misunderstood what you're saying, so please don't think this is an argument. You may not realize that all that work in DAZ to open Misty's figures is a one-time thing. You do that to create the Carrara preset for the figure, and then after that you can just re-use the preset when you need to add the figure to a scene. It's very similar to the way you do a lot of work on shaders after loading an older-generation figure, then save the shader preset so you don't have to do it again. To me that's an acceptable tradeoff, but I understand if you feel differently.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but after you've created the character preset, can't you just load the clothing normally in Carrara? You don't have to do anything in DAZ Studio to create separate clothing presets. Am I right?

Of course I want Carrara to be updated, too... I have some crashing issues I'd like to see resolved.

Mistara

g3 and g8 clothing needs to be converted to Blended in DS.
save the clothes as a scene subset.
then you can use it anytime. 

doesn't work on every outfit.  beware geografted shoeses

Blended refers to the skinbinding.  
anytime you see the bone skeleton moving in carrara and the figure mesh doesn't follow,
t's the skin binding.

happens to vehicles also.  
if you see the bones of the car doors opening,  
but not the mesh, try saving it as a blended character preset or scene subset.

Jonstark

Mistara said:

g3 and g8 clothing needs to be converted to Blended in DS.
save the clothes as a scene subset.

Hi Misty, how do you convert to Blended?  Or is that something that happens automatically when you save as a scen subset?

Jonstark

Nvm, I figured it out 5 min after I asked (isn't that always the way it goes? lol)   

Looks like you select Edit > Figure > Rigging > ConvertTriax/General Weighto Blended Weight.

Looks like paired with my homemade way of solving the geograft issue (essentially creating a new 'clothing' version of the character and rigging it with Transfer Utility), I can now get a useable Genesis3 into Carrara.  I have to wonder if this will work for Genesis4 too, but I don't have that installed.  Going to have to take some time later today to install Genesis4 just to see, as my curiosity is peaked.  Thanks for the pointer about blended weight, very cool!  :)

Jonstark

Wut?  Apparently it's not called Genesis4 but Genesis8... that makes no sense but at least I was able to find it.  Should be Genesis 4 Female / Victoria 8.  Feels wrong to see it listed as Genesis 4.  I guess they were influenced by the naming conventions employed by Windows and just decided to randomly skip some numbers  :)

Mistara

Jonstark said:

Nvm, I figured it out 5 min after I asked (isn't that always the way it goes? lol)   

Looks like you select Edit > Figure > Rigging > ConvertTriax/General Weighto Blended Weight.

Looks like paired with my homemade way of solving the geograft issue (essentially creating a new 'clothing' version of the character and rigging it with Transfer Utility), I can now get a useable Genesis3 into Carrara.  I have to wonder if this will work for Genesis4 too, but I don't have that installed.  Going to have to take some time later today to install Genesis4 just to see, as my curiosity is peaked.  Thanks for the pointer about blended weight, very cool!  :)

 

had u/l screenshots to show how to add the convert rigging as button to tool bar.
speeds up the process.  load click click  loll 

... here somewheres ... ...

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2610766/#Comment_2610766

 

testing out a streamlined method of transferring morphs to the V8 and O8 eyebrows.
trick is to add the head morphs to faves list, in DS,
transfer utility has option to transfer faved morphs.

TangoAlpha

Jonstark said:

Wut?  Apparently it's not called Genesis4 but Genesis8... that makes no sense but at least I was able to find it.  Should be Genesis 4 Female / Victoria 8.  Feels wrong to see it listed as Genesis 4.  I guess they were influenced by the naming conventions employed by Windows and just decided to randomly skip some numbers  :)

Nah, it makes a lot of sense imho, since it

1. aligns the technology & character numbers

2. avoids a lot of unfortunate confusion (& refunds = badwill) with V4/M4

josephlemons69_4db0991b45

Jonstark said:

Wut?  Apparently it's not called Genesis4 but Genesis8... that makes no sense but at least I was able to find it.  Should be Genesis 4 Female / Victoria 8.  Feels wrong to see it listed as Genesis 4.  I guess they were influenced by the naming conventions employed by Windows and just decided to randomly skip some numbers  :)

Look who finally came out from under their rock lol :P 

Dartanbeck

TangoAlpha said:

Stezza said:

+1

same here on my Win10Pro

 

+2 - same on my Mac.

Can't run 2 instances of Carrara at the same time though (nor DS etc), but that's a Mac limitation.

Misty was talking about (I think) opening two Carrara scenes at the same time within the same instance of Carrara. I agree with her... it's great to be able to copy/paste from one scene to another this way, among other things that such a thing benefits.

Also, beyond the commonly referred to differences between Carrara and Daz Studio, I just like Carrara better in so many ways. I think that they'd be making a wise decision to put a team on it and keep it part of the flow into the future. For losing Carrara, I think, would also be ridding themselves of a good many customers at the same time.

I've also been getting a larger realization of how many people still cherish Hexagon and Bryce too. I just cannot imagine the development of these treasures being anything but a good thing for the company. They have a nice corner of the market that can truly increase their draw into their precious Studio, since it nicely bridges into Hex and Bryce - and Carrara is just magic. Yes, a DS <> Carrara bridge would be a wonderful tool, but like Wendy says, it's not really a needed thing.

Now being able to save to DUF from Carrara... now that could be very special indeed!

briannhinton_061bb6f56d

I've sadly moved on. The Mac version of Carrara has been glitchy since Daz bought the software and integrated their odd (and completely unnecessary) package management software system. And there are better, and more frequently updated alternatives ie. Cheetah 3D, Blender, etc. Companies never seem to understand that small, but consistent iterative improvements can go a long way. I could make a massive list of basic quality of life improvements that would go a long way towards making Carrara better. My bet is that Carrara is abandonware at this point. It's quite sad as I used to use Carrara professionally in animations for television (title sequences, advertisements, etc.) and even used to do 1-on-1 consultations for local film production companies that wanted to add 3D to their work at a low cost. Now Carrara is a weird artist tool that is so far behind it's not funny. I used Carrara before it was even released to the public, and continued using it consistently all the way to version 8ish. I was on every beta team until Daz purchased it. They seemed to forget the power users that used just it, and didn't buy into the content machine. I'd love to be proven wrong though. Carrara still has a warm and fuzzy place in my heart, and I'd love for it to succeed again.

briannhinton_061bb6f56d

And I had big buy in on plugins. Daz could have gone the route of offering incremental improvements as plugins. And updating / improving aspects of Carrara iteratively. Making profit in large amounts of purchases of small plugins. Just a few that I purchased over the years:

Shaper

ArchiTools

Baker

Deeper

Primivol

Replica

Swap

Veloute

Powerpack

Shader Ops 2

Shaders Plus

Wireframe Pro

Toon! Pro

Enhance:C