What is the difference between Carrara and Daz Studio?
IceDragonArt
Posts: 12,759
in The Commons
Mostly just curious, I have thought about trying it when its on sale but not sure that I really need it. Does it do anything differently?
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The two are quite different from each other. Carrara, amongst other things, has a built-in modelling capacities.
It also has built-in bullet physics, UV unfolding&editing, and plenty more cool stuff DS doesn't have.,
Here's DAZ own advertisement for it, it has a video included: http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-8-5-pro
Looks really interesting... May have to pick it up once my wallet recovers from the last round of sales...
I don't use Carrara for rendering. It's great and does stuff Daz can't, and I REALLY pine for Carrara's parametric and procedural shaders in Daz Studio.
However, at a sale price (~$60)? It's worth it alone as a pretty good modeler with, IMO, one of the more intuitive and low learning curve UIs around.
So if I model in Carrara I use them in Daz correct? I am assuming I need to import as an object or does it import a different way?
Greetings,
I've picked it up; it's HELLA powerful, just grabbing one of Howie Farkes' sets and rendering from pre-set camera angles shows that. But I've never, ever figured out how to navigate worth a damn in it. I mean like...just as simple as moving my 'directors camera' around seems vastly harder than DS. I'm sure it's not, but it's frustrating. I have a video series on Carrara that I bought, but I've...well, I've never had the time to watch it. :(
It seems astonishingly powerful, but the UI is just not something that 'clicks' with me the way DAZ Studio did.
-- Morgan
Thanks Morgan. I do find Daz Studio very easy to navigate in. the modelling abilities in carrara are intriguing as are a couple other things I need to read up on before investing more money and time. I feel like I am finally getting the hang of studio after 7 months and am debating if I really want to add another program to learn right this particular second lol.
You can buy Carrara from Daz for a trial period and return it if you don't like it. Carrara does come with a lot of free extras that pay for itself if you don't already have them (see the sale page for included products).
Daz Studio is a program for rigging/posing/rendering existing 3D models and props. As such, Studio is in the same product space as Smith Micro's Poser. To create the model figures and props for Studio, one could use the Hexagon bridge (or Silo or Blender, or...). To place Daz figures on terrains with rivers, forests, and clouds, one could use the Bryce bridge.
Carrara has modeling, rigging, posing, terrains, skies, and rendering all in one program. So, Carrara is sort of Studio/Hexagon/Bryce all wrapped in one. And there is more. To see some highlights, consider:
- strand based hair that can flow in dynamic animations instead of relying on morphs http://www.daz3d.com/dynamic-desire-hair and http://www.daz3d.com/naomi
- terrains with surface replicators and a plant editor for custom trees http://www.daz3d.com/stoney-creek-bundle that exceeds Studio instances (for the moment).
- Carrara also has physics
I point out strand based hair and Howie Farkes forests in particular because they don't translate well to Studio. To take advantage of some of these other Carrara features, it is better to load the Daz figures/props in Carrara either directly or as exported scene subsets. Then render in Carrara or one of the realistic renderers for which there is a plugin (Octane, Lux). Although Carrara can do animations natively, some people use Carrara for scene setup and export to iclone for animations.
With the Daz return policy you can try it risk free. Plus, the included genesis products may be worth it if you don't already have them. If you decide to try it and get stuck, people can be very helpful in the Carrara forum.
Note some things that don't work - Genesis 3 does not currently work in Carrara. Genesis and Genesis 2 do work in Carrara, along with Vick 1-6, Michael 1-6, various Aikos through 6, Poser figures (eg. Simon and Sydney) through Poser 8, various The Girl through 6, and other Daz figures through 6. The HD morphs currently do not work in Carrara. Some geografts have problems in Carrara. Also note that shader systems are slightly different between Poser, Studio, and Carrara. As a result, one generally needs to do a one time adjustment for shaders when moving between programs.
what he said
LOL, I'm always cussing at Studio over how frustrating its navigation is! Carrara I find to be one of the most intuitive navigation systems around:
Option / Alt + right mouse button -- move camera left / right / up / down
Option / Alt + left mouse button -- orbit current selection
mouse wheel -- zoom in/out
There's probably something on the middle mouse button too, but I don't have one of those.
In DS Window>Workspace>Customise will let you change the DS navigation controls - just be aware that alt-LMB is already used for deselection in the Geometry Editor tool so you will need to reassign that to compensate.
Carrara is one of those things I picked up when I first started with DS because it sounded like a great program. I also got a video tutorial for it, but have never really had the chance to sit down and give it a good chance to learn. The few times I had it open, I couldn't figure out how to even access my library. I've gotten a little further than that each time I've had it open, but not much. I really need to sit down with it when I'm not so involved with all my other projects, but I don't know when that would be! If you can get on sale, it might be a good thing to pick up, but there will definitely be a learning curve there as well. It will definitely mean another notebook for you!
I bought Carrara ages ago and just couldn't get to grips with it, so in the end I returned it for a refund. To be honest though, I felt much the same about Bryce and would probably have returned that too if I hadn't realised until beyond the thirty day refund window that I was 'never' going to be able to understand it. Things fell into place with Bryce for me reasonably shortly after that, and now I love it and use it all the time. Who knows, I might go back for another look at Carrara one day.
Yes, just export Carrara stuff as obj and then import into Daz. I was able to design a 4 armed shirt in Carrara, suck it into Daz, make it a dynamic outfit. (I really ought to redo it with a 'cleaner' UV map at some point)
I've tried to use Carrara more deeply, but I use a lot of geografts and weirdness in Daz that I've had a huge amount of trouble getting to work in Carrara.
Does Carrara have the same broken Export/Import rigged mesh problems that Daz Studio has (i.e. non-standard FBX and DAE support that won't even work with itself)?
If Carrara can actually export and import rigged meshes I might get it for that alone. It doesn't look like Daz is ever going to fix their export/import bug in Studio.
I'll let someone else answer, I've never done anything with rigging.
Great information everyone thank you!
Oh crap, nevermind. It doesn't look like it has the sale price of $60 anymore. There's no way I'd ever pay that high a price for Daz software given their support history.
If you are interested, just wishlist it and wait. It's been on sale quite a bit.
Ya I see it on sale all the time. Right now I am gathering info so when it goes on sale again I will know what I want to do. Everytime I see it I thing oh, that looks really interesting.
I've only dipped my toe into box modeling, but Carrara seems to do a pretty nice job with it, without some of the intimidating weirdness of other UIs (cough Blender)
I have never really hated software before, but Blender I developed a deep and instant loathing of.
Boot the software.
Okay let's do something.
Click... click... what the hell the only thing the mouse button does is move a weird target thingy around the screen. How do you actually DO something with this software?
Find out later Blender does everything backwards from the way every other piece of software does things because reasons.
cant stand the ui and working with 2 monitors is no fun
tried to like it but no
nothing for me
Ghastly: Yeah. Maybe it's just how I think, but I found Carrara's modeling UI MONUMENTALLY easier. Very visual.
I mean, there are things I don't like about Carrara's UI, particularly file management, but for $60...
Here's the shirt I made in Carrara (exported as obj, taken into DS, then Dyncreator to turn it dynamic):
http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Fourarm-shirt-experiment1-593551369
It's actually REALLY poorly made, since it's my first attempt box modeling (yes, I would start with something like that). The mesh is all wonky and poorly laid out, and I had to use a procedural shader because the UV mapping is horrible.
That said, I could DO it. And the next thing will be way better. ;)
I don't know about FBX / DAE, since I've never used them with anything that was rigged. But Carrara will directly open a .duf file and keep the rigging* Even where I've created a prop in Carrara, I often find it easier to rig in DS and then bring it back. (although generally in Carrara I'll parent & constrain for preference)
* Except for "translate" rigging - Carrara only supports bones that rotate. Bones that translate - typically shafts & sliders - will import, but won't do anything. Bots with lots of pistons tend to spang all over the place as a result.
Still showing as $65 as of 1 minute ago (PC+ Price for Carrara 8.5 Pro)
Ya I may use this months coupon on it...
Ah Okay. I'm not a PC member so that's why it's still $300.
To me the biggest difference is DS get updated all the time and Carrara once every few years if at all.
Still with toons pro plugin Carrara rocks for toon renders !
Exactly why I would never pay anywhere close to full price for it.
Currently sitting at $104. I think I will wait a bit longer since it has been consistently at $65 for months now...