Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Just to add,...
Carrara 8 Pro,. was the first version available in both 32 bit and 64 bit
Carrara 8.5 Pro (current version) is supplied in both 32 and 64 bit. Mac and PC
32 bit still supports Quicktime (.MOV) file export ,. which is still unavailable in 64bit
We are in agreement. I have Carrara and COULD make all of my own content. Yet, I buy (a lot of) content from the Daz store. I also model my own things if the store doesn't have something that I can either use or adapt to reach my goal. Sometimes, I will make everything in a scene entirely myself, for no good reason at all - just because I want to. Other times, I will construct a scene almost entirely with content sold in the Daz store. It is nice to have options.
My point was that Carrara is not merely a modeling plugin for Studio.
I'd also just like to add that:
I like Daz Studio as a wonderful assistant app for my Carrara workflow - especially the Content Creation Tools.
It could easily go the other way around:
Carrara can handle having a LOT of content brought into it - with some simple good house-keeping methods it's absolutely amazing how much we can throw into a scene.
Carrara has a really nice, built-in atmosphere/outdoor lighting system (Realistic Sky Editor) along with simple to use, yet powerful Terrain and Plant modeler/editor tools
So it's really easy to quicky build a nice 360 degree scene, plop in a spherical camera, and make your own dome images for use in Daz Studio's Iray panel, as I've done here as a quick example/test (these were all done using th above Carrara-to-Daz Studio workflow - rendered in Iray)
..... Uuuuummmmm .... Carrara 8.5 Pro does have 64 bit
Agreed, for anyone using geografts, Carrara just doesn't quite do it
As others have mentioned, it's render engine does quite well, as shown in the first image below (be sure to zoom to full resolution to see the details). It has full ray-tracing and GI capabilities, plus a faster ambient occlusion mode.
Unfortunately, Iray isn't available for Carrara. There is a fantastic plugin for Octane Render though if you fall in love with Carrara
and want a top notch unbiased GPU based render engine with a lot more features than Iray. The second image was done with the Octane Render plugin (skin shaders could be better - that's my fault not Octane's).
For me it's time.
My sig is a car I modelled, then created shaders for etc in Blender; I don't have that sort of time very often; I had lots of free time when I created that car, and it took many months. If I was doing this for a living, then I'd use Blender more; Daz Studio is convenient, and allows me to do some things I suck at in Blender ( I can't do character models at all - and certainly haven't the time).
Someone said you can paint textures directly in Carrarra. Does that mean I can import G3 as an obj, fix any seams on a texture I create, then use that texture on G3 in DS? Also can you morph faces? Morph a G3 character from an obj then create a slider from the new obj to use on G3 in DS? Also, and most importantly, is there a MANUAL???
So why hasn't Hexagon been updated for 64 bit? If anything, content creators could use Hex to create Daz content to sell on Daz's store...talk about a win-win situation. It doesn't get any more win-win than owning both the store and creation software used to fill it! Not supporting that software is pretty ridiculous. Obviously you can create content in them, but it is not streamlined for Daz, Hex may not even run, and Carrara doesn't do Genesis 3 nor Iray.
It just seems to make sense from my point of view that in order to get more content on Daz, you sell customers some inexpensive and modern creation tools that allow them to build their stuff. Daz can only grow as its content allows it to. They have a big PA recruitment sign up on top of the store page, so clearly they are looking for some more PA's. Yet their own modeling software is out of date. There is an opportunity here, with such a massive gap between free Blender and then ~$800 Z-Brush and other programs, while Hexagon and Carrara have been left to die. They could reveamp one of those and gear it for Daz content creation and sell it for like $100. If they did the right way (and that is important,) it could become the go to software for PA's, meaning Daz gets even more money. It also keeps the people invested in their eco system.
Woops, my bad.
@Wonderland
Great questions.
Unfortunately, G3F and G3M will not load in Carrara as rigged.
As you point out, they can be exported from DS as obj files and then loaded in Carrara. Have not tried, but in principle one could do that and then paint texture maps directly on the models. Unless I am missing something, the uvs should be preserved and the resulting maps match up for use in other programs. But again, I haven't tried. I have painted a clown face on genesis 2 and the map worked fine, but haven't tried G3.
Yes, you can morph faces and figures loaded in Carrara and save those morphs out to be used in DS. For V4, M4, Genesis 1 and 2 no problem. Again, G3 won't load in Carrara as a figure. It will load as an obj, so in priniple that should work to create morphs, although I have not tried.
Manual? The manual that comes with C8.5 is outdated. So, yes there is a manual but it is insufficient. Aaargh.
Here I have loaded G2M base male in Carrara and painted some war paint on his cheeks.
OK thanks. I'm still learning DS, I guess I have another program now to make my brain explode LOL...
+1
The way they have ignored Carrara, Hex, and Bryce seems to defy logic. I can sort of understand it with Hex, because there are already many outstanding modeling packages out there. But on the other hand, Hex has outstanding potential in the DAZ market niche with just a little bit of TLC.
Why they have forgotten Carrara seems to defy logic. It is the only general porpose 3D software that has integrated use of DAZ products, and they don't even mention it on their main marketing pages. Instead they say
Yes, you can easily import Genesis figures into 3DS and Maya, I have done it. But .... you lose most of the functionality found in DS and Carrara when you do so. So why don't they mention Carrara?? Maybe because no one at DAZ actually uses Carrara, or maybe because they just don't have future plans for it? Regardless, they have the perfect tool to fill the need of aspiring 3D hobbyists and 3D freelance artists. They just need to improve it a bit, integrate G3, provide basic introductory training materials, and market it. Carrara does have rather unique programing requirements that aren't main stream (i.e. it takes time for a programmer to get up to speed in it's programming environment). This may be a big part of the problem, since they really need to dedicate one (or more) people to primarily programing for Carrara. This may be an expense they are unwilling to fund, and the way they have now devalued Carrara, it may be an expense that would be very difficult to recover. Though with proper marketing, updates to the manual, and basic introductory training, IMHO it would be very easy to recover a large portion of those costs in content sales.
OK, enough soap box for now
. Regardless, Carrara is still a very good and capable general 3D software.
This is coming from a carrara fan and user with versions 6-8.5. I use DS for ease of use and workflow that gives me great results in the best time possible. I have blender installed, along with 3DSMax, Rhino, Sketchup, and a few other modeling apps. Blenders UI still baffles me to this day, better than previous versions, but still a mystery which is why I don't use it much.
I love carrara, but i find posing a pain and navigation harder than with DS. I also love using genesis 3 figures, so that leaves me out till it's updated for their use or i use another import format. Honestly, if they added carraras import (FBX actually works in carrara) funtionality, terrain creation tools and modeling capabilities to DS, it would be the perfect tool for me and my workflow.
If you want to see what some of the Carrara Forum members have been up to with the tool have a look at the Carrara challenge WIP thread.
I purchased Carrara 4 from Eovia... and quickly upgraded to Carrara 4 Pro in less than 30 days of trying it out. Back then it did a lot of things that my previous 3D modeling/animation software did. Today Carrara 8.5 Pro is much better than version 4 Pro... which by the way was around $500+-... even then it came with some DAZ content, not as much as today. It also comes with a bunch of Carrara content, Scenes, Objects, Shaders and more... everything you need to help you get started using it by showing examples which you can modify and/or learn from.
Do I... Don't I??:
Note: Do not load G3 as is into Carrara which will crash... that is a problem DAZ has not yet fixed but is aware of.
I had Cararra 6 Pro (freebie that came with the old DAZ book) and there were lots of things I liked about it, and some I didn't. Here was my experience:
Pros:
Cons:
Basically since I was ignoring the modeling part, Cararra for was a rendering tool for Poser content with better renderer and shader system but worse UI and posing tools. I decided to stick with Studio rather than sink money into the upgrade path for Cararra.
At this price, I may go ahead and buy back in, still on the fence. But better make up my mind soon!
I know it's no great shakes compared to the work of the old-timers who've been at it for ages, but as a Carrara newbie I'm astonished that you can do this in less than ten minutes, including render time (and dodgy lens flare - no postwork required :) ), all with nothing more than the content that already comes supplied with the program. As for what you can do when you do put a bit of time and effort in... I've barely scratched the surface and I can't believe what this program can do. I'd massively recommend it to anyone.
...nice work.
I remember whne I was messing around with the old 6.1 demo on my duo core 32 bit notebook. One of the test I did was creating a Martian terrain and then animating a 15 second flyover. Took a couple hours to render but didn't crash and looked pretty darn convincing even back then.
Awesome! Welcome aboard! There's a lot of stuff in the Carrara Discussion thread to help get started... if you need any questions answered... come on in and give a holler! If not, come on in and show us what you're doing!!! :)
Fantastic! See? That's what I'm always sayin'. Carrara's Fast! and Carrara's Fun! And Carrara ROCKS!!!
Welcome to the wonderful world that is CARRARA!!! :D
Welcome aboard! Blacksmith's real strong feature is 3D painting on a figure, which it is great at! It can also be used for creating morphs, but doesn't really have any modeling capabilities to creat models from scratch like Carrara or Hex. There are a few vendors that use Blacksmith to aid in character and creation/texturing.
Yes, we can use Carrara to model onto an OBJ of Genesis 3 and send it back to DS as a new morph. It even has displacement brushes in the vertex modeler if you want to go for fine details or bizzare stuff.
And Yes, we could bring in an OBJ of Genesis 3 and paint on it ;) The 3D paint has layers like PS, and we can set opacity on each, etc., and then export the result as a PSD file, to maintain layers, or merge them to export as an image file of your choosing.
We cannot (yet) bring in a Genesis 3 with morphs, but if we export one with morphs applied as OBJ from DS, we can then work with that in Carrara and export our work back to DS.
We can also very easily model custom clothing and hair in Carrara directly over the base mesh. The base mesh won't be selectable while in modeling mode for the other object (clothong, hair, or whatever) making the process really slick!
Oh... and did I mention that I love, Love LOVE Carrara's render engine!?
Volumetric lighting is really cool! In some of the above images, we can see some light cones - all done in the original render using a gel in the light, then in the cone effect we can use that gel to create volumetric fog! Looks pretty sweet doesn't it? I like it!
Some of the other fog we see is created using the Realistic Sky's atmospheric fog (even if we can't see the sky) and other times we're seeing volumetric clouds, which are super awesome to play with! The exhaust under the Pirahna ship (bottom image) is a scaled down volumetric cloud, and there's a much, much larger one (.2 miles x .2 miles x .1 mile high) whose very top is just peaking up to the height of the tops of the trees - used as a ground fog.
The lighting effect in the image above that, of the Marcoor space ship in the cave, is using the gel/cone light example I was talking about earlier. So are the cone effects in the Dark Star setting above that.
Lights in Carrara are really simple to work with. I don't have a lot of experience making up scenes in DS, so perhaps that's why (lack of experience) I have a bit of a harder time setting those up. I do love DS though... I really do. Daz3d has done a remarkable job developing that marvelous suite, and I love how they've included so much in the way of content creation tools... really nice.
I just find Carrara to be fantastic for my animation needs... and therefore find it really well suited for my still images as well.
Carrara is my favorite reason to use my computer! :)
I'd love to be able to, say, generate water flowing on a surface in Carrara and then freeze it as an obj. Is that doable?
One of my early frustrations with DS and Carrara was a lot of the nifty particle stuff in Carrara didn't seem exportable. Also the procedural shaders -- when I initially bought Carrara I naively assumed I could freeze and export procedural shaders. Well, you CAN, but the results are... uninspiring.
I used the complimentary copy that comes with Infinite Skills' Advanced Carrara Techniques (I love this course and all of the other Carrara courses) and made it really long (3 ft) and added a lot of curls using the sliders in the shader - really really simple. Then hit the drape button and watch it fall naturally around my character. The course also comes with a nice invisible face shield to avoid the hair falling into her face - without having to take other special steps to keep it from doing so. But it's by far the most realistic CG hair I've ever seen! And this example is not the high-quality setup... it's the fast, fast fast setup!
For an idea of how easy it can be to set up and animate the dynamic hair... check this out:
►►► Creating realistic Carrara hair for animations and still renders - By Jonstark
We're also very fortunate to have an Excellent instructor for this software, authoring professional courses that answer questions we might not even think to ask... just like our own in-home college! Phil Wilkes is the excellent author, and the courses are professionally edited and presented via Infinite skills, and distributed here, at Daz3d
(an excerpt from an article I've written in ► Learning CARRARA and need some help?)
*Note that you don't need both "Learning Carrara 8" and "Learning Carrara 8.5" - as the latter is the same but with updates regarding new features of version 8.5, so if you already have the former, you may get just the 8.5 updates via the "Learning Carrara 8.5 - New Features Supplement". Very nice of Phil to suggest the upgrade option to Infinite Skills... and it was really nice of them to comply ;)
Check the link (click the image) and scroll down the page to see the Table of Contents. This course is INCREDIBLY useful to any Carraraist, new, used or old. It covers a wonderfully detailed look at Carrara as a whole - with perfect demonstrations to drive the topics home.
The working files are also a wonderful addition to the Carrara browser! I download the working files and add them to my own special "PhilW" category in my My Objects browser, and I'm often glad to have those examples there - not just to see what he did, but quite often just to save some time and load in a project which helps my specific needs!
If you don't already know how to create your own custom browser in Carrara, I've written the following article for you:
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
This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.
Advanced Carrara Techniques - puts us in the drives seat of Carrara's modelers with brilliant detail. There are times where the course takes us to a point where he could either repeat a technique or skip past it. Instead, he demonstrates a different method using a different modeler or a different method within the same modeler! Really cool.
Right from the start he gets us into the processes of UV Mapping, including UV unwrapping with seams and pins. This is essential for any model maker to learn and fully understand. What good are models if they can't look right in the end, right? When it's a good opportunity within the course to revisit UV Mapping... he does. Very well executed.
The models that he shows us how to build are very nicely done, with full explanations and details along the way - and he provides them in the working files which, again, work great as working examples, but also as valuable content! The Sopwith Camel airplane (shown on the Cover art) he makes within the course is absolutely stunning!!!
He also covers many other techniques and tips that really help take us to those next levels in our projects. We could be satisfied with the wonderful country cottage scene he teaches us to build. But Phil continues on and builds some beautiful field grass, forms it into clumps and replicates it to specific parts of the terrain! He leaves no stone unturned - even the ones that he makes in Carrara! ;)
Particles examples, making clothing three different ways for V4 (applicable to any figure), taking us into PhotoShop or Daz Studio when appropriate to complete the instruction... and a Lot Lot More! I'm sure you'll agree that any and all of these course are worth a LOT more than what they cost. It was the cost that kept me away at first. I was embarrassed that I waited so long once I finally took the plunge. He even teaches us how to create HDR images!!! Highly recommended!
Again, the working files are also a wonderful addition to the Carrara browser!
My rendering habits have forever changed after taking this course.
Like all of his courses, this one doesn't skimp on education or entertainment. Phil is perfect at delivering a good solid foundation of skills needed to really understand Carrara, which gives each of us something special according to how we use it.
He covers the intricacies of indoor lighting and rendering, along with a bonus tip of a very ingenious method of making quick models to fill the scene - even if you don't model! I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I can't tell you what it is... It's cool, though and it works great!
Building shaders for realism, setting good default rendering and scene settings, exterior scenes, human portrait rendering, and a wealth of information about all of the various light types available to us. He takes us through shading a model of a car to stunning results, he takes a simple scene from Carrara's native browser and, by creating all new shaders, lighting and environment elements, turns the thing into a masterpiece - with added post work examples in PhotoShop! A real treat, this course is!
There is a plugin for that - Baker from Inagoni will bake your procedural testures to images for reuse or export. You can buy a suite of Inagoni plugins here, or the individual plugins direct from his website.
Thanks DustRider for catching his question. I should have stated it wasn't a 3d modeler but for what you said.
...ran into an odd issue tonight, posted it over on the Carrara forums.
I really wish there were PDF/Dead Tree guides available as I have an extermely low retention rate with videos due to short term memory issues and find mself spending more time replaying them repetitively than actually making any headway on the task at hand. Hence, I've resorted pretty much to "seat of the pant's" learning which is slow going.
As people have said it is very good,but I am sorry I bought it! Carrara 8.5 keeps crashing therefore i can get nothing finished ,so just be aware it could be a waste of money for you.Not sure if carrara Pro is any better.
I think Carrara is not for everyone. I have it for so long time, beginning with the versions released by Eovia,
but still could not find my way inside its interface. It does not crash on my computer,
but I find Blender much easier to use for what, I need it (currently modelling simple props for use in Daz Studio).
I am accustomed to the super easy interface of Daz Studio, so I am a bit overwhelmed by Carrara interface and some of its fuctionality,
not to mention differences in posing figures, setting up the camera, and so on.
I can render a ready made scenes and the figures posed in Daz Studio, and then transferred to Carrara, but that's it.
Hmm, I'll wishlist that for a future sale, thanks.
I THINK I tried some version of Baker before and had problems, but... we'll see.
...for me it's the opposite, I'm totally overwhelmed by Blender's clunky keyboard driven UI had find Carrara's, while more complex than Daz (as Carrara is capable of so much more), still no where as tough and frustrating to deal with as Blender's.