Tynkere Carrara FAQ scrapbook & other things

Stezza · February 2019

I’ve had Carrara since Version 5 and still haven’t read the manual!

i just wing it and use this forum for guidance.. and YouTube.

Stezza · February 2019

Tynkere said:

Thanks for replies.

That’s disappointing about G3/G8 clothes. G1 or G2 will have to do for now.

Meanwhile, very worried if aging i-7 can run Carrara without significant lag.

Screenshot: for those who might use older desktops, do you have a preferred settings here?

Test G2M as subset from DS took very long time.

3:07PM - Load a G2M subset into a scene that has “off road car” and terrain. Finish by 4:11PM.

Save. Approx 4:31PM -- file is saved.

While waiting, duplicated scene in DS & render. Time: approx 49 minutes.

1.) My mistake in assuming setup wizard meant render times. It means general performance of the app?

2.) I have the PDF for version 7 but cannot find one for version 8.5. Textures that come with “off road car” aren’t loading correctly, so... Manual for version 7 good or out of date?

Sage advice to print it and learn textures before anything fancy!

For now though, any tips/advice for improving load times from library and save times greatly appreciated. Am using version 8.5.1 build 19 if that means anything.

Best wishes & enjoy weekend.

can you link to the off road product so if any of us have it we can test it out

on the save side of things I've never had anything take that long to save! wow

the only time something takes a while is when I save a G G2 figure from the scene and drag it to the tab folder.. that takes a while but still not that long..

My machine is an i7 from 2014 with only a GTx640 video card... it's no good for Daz Studio but plenty good for Carrara which hasn't been updated since 2013.

Just check to see if your hard drive isn't getting full... all my Carrara stuff content and programs are installed on a seperate drive to the OS..

anyways... back to that off road vehicle... can you point us to it?

Tynkere · February 2019

Thanks. If anyone has product, might help clear up some confusion.

Cannot find RSL presets for it.

3DL is in description, so a mistake, or I’m missing something. ???

OffRoad Car

File List

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Subset Loading and save times:

Carrara does *not* seem to do well with what I think is called ‘transmapped’ hair?

G2M subset into an empty scene still took approx 1 hour. Delete “Buzzed Hair For G2” from him.

Loaded into Cararra in < 1 minute! :)

For save times, am using “All Internally” if that makes any diff.

Sometimes I read the books, other times I just pick a tool and see what happens.

WendyLuvsCatz · February 2019

yes it hates transmaps

3DAGE · February 2019

Hi :)

Please save as "local" ./ this uses a reference to the location of the files used in the scene.

Saving "internally" creates copies of all images (saved internally to high res format) plus the models used in the scene./this will produce a very large scene file,. for no advantage.

Saving internally is a great way to transport the scen to a system which has none of the resources used in the scene.

Carrara, and most other 3D programs have some issues with rendering transmapped hair , mainly due to mutiple layers of overlapping semi transparent alpha maps.

however,. what you're describing sounds like a long loading time issue , or slow conversion from DS to Car.

anything you load into carrara (models /shaders) has to be "converted" into carrara native, sometimes importing a scene from another program may take longer than loading directly from your library

Try loading the figure and hair directly from the carrara browser, rather than in a DS scene

3DAGE · February 2019

one other thing,.

in the Atmosphere / Realistic Sky Editor,. there are options for different cloud layers, as well as options for the atmosphere scale density and fog/ sunbeams

in the "Advanced" section, you'll find options for location time and day settings

pic to help

Diomede · February 2019

Sorry, I don't have off road car so can't help with that.

Hair

I will chip in my two cents on hair. These are just my random thoughts on some approaches. Your mileage may vary. For me, hair is a series of compromises. Attempts to create realistic hair by modeling a mesh either rely on transmapped alpha maps to create the illusion of detail or have extremely high polygon counts, or both. The poly counts of fiber mesh hair models in particular strain my computer's resources. Dynamic hair native to Carrara is great, but its appearance is very sensitive to changes in lighting. Although the dynamic hair renders as expected with the standard Carrara renderer, it does some unexpected things with the Toon filter and with the NPR render engine, both of which I like. Fortunately, the ever generous and amazing Philemo has created a plugin to convert dynamic hair to mesh, which can help with the rarely used by others Carrara NPR render engine.

- classic approach - conforming figures and parented props made from relatively simple meshes that are parented/conformed to the head. These rely on transmaps for details like hair fringe. This type of hair is very common. A Poser artist named Kazaburo was making great transmapped hair decades ago. Some current hair figures are essentially still this same approach. I have a whole folder of this type of hair that was made for V4 that I have converted for use with Genesis and Genesis 2 using the transfer utility in Studio. In Carrara, they load and conform/parent like any other figure or prop. Load times and conforming times (morph projection) are directly related to the complexity of the underlying mesh, but many of these have relatively simple meshes and load/morph relatively quickly. Like any other item made for Poser or Studio, some tweaks have to be done for the shaders. Generally, only have to tweak once and then save a global Carrara shader to the broser.

Here is an example of Daz's fairytale hair that was made for V4. It is a conforming figure, relatively high density as these things go, but loads and performs well in Carrara.

- Once a conforming/pareted hair (in this case converted from V4 to Genesis 2 using Studio) is loaded and conformed to Genesis 2 in Carrara like any other item, you can change the hair color using the Daz material pose presets. Highlight the hair figure subfolder (not actor) and double click the material preset in your content folder. In the attached, I changed from the default color to blonde by using this selection and double click method.

- Like any other item designed for either Poser or Daz Studio, it is best to tweak the shaders for Carrara. Here you can see that the default materials for the Fairytale hair look too smooth plasti, and shiny.

- To tweak for Carrara, now select the actor level of the hair model, and go to the shader room and check the settings. For this hair model, the default load has white highlights (equal to 100%), almost zero shiny, and the default bump actually is zero. You can confirm that a transmap did load in the alpha channel and other settings as desired.

- For this example, I adjusted the shaders for the front right strands of hair. I decreased the highlight and increased shiny and bump. In this test render, compare the adjusted hair tothe unadjusted.

- Once satisfied with your Carrara tweaks for all sections of hair, you can save the global settings for all sections by clicking and dragging from the multicolored sphere to the shader folder of your lower browser.

Even though that example was for V4 hair, the same principles apply to transmapped mesh hair designed for Genesis, Genesis 2, etc.

Diomede · February 2019

Fibermesh and similar high density conforming or parented hair

well, basically just repeating that the same principles apply as above.

However, my experience has been that high density mesh hair using fibermesh loads extremely slowly and takes a long time to project morphs.

Often this hair was made in Zbrush, but I guess that really does not matter so much. In principle, one could use Philemo's dynamic to mesh plugin to create hair models of similar density and would have similar issues. The great thing about Philemo's plugin is that it gives you control over how dense the mesh will be. I generally avoid high density fibermesh hair unless I have plenty of time to wait out the time it takes to load and project any morphs.

Diomede · February 2019

To sum up, in my experience, Carrara handles transmapped hair that depends on alpha maps fine for many uses. For me, it just depends on the density of the mesh. One big caveat that would apply to all content designed for either Poser or Daz Studio is that the shaders have to be tweaked for Carrara. It is then convenient to save the tweaked shaders as a global shader to the browser tray at the bottom of the interface.

Dynamic hair is a whole subject unto itself.

Bunyip02 · February 2019

Diomede_Carrara said:

Sorry, I don't have off road car so can't help with that.

Hair

I will chip in my two cents on hair. These are just my random thoughts on some approaches. Your mileage may vary. For me, hair is a series of compromises. Attempts to create realistic hair by modeling a mesh either rely on transmapped alpha maps to create the illusion of detail or have extremely high polygon counts, or both. The poly counts of fiber mesh hair models in particular strain my computer's resources. Dynamic hair native to Carrara is great, but its appearance is very sensitive to changes in lighting. Although the dynamic hair renders as expected with the standard Carrara renderer, it does some unexpected things with the Toon filter and with the NPR render engine, both of which I like. Fortunately, the ever generous and amazing Philemo has created a plugin to convert dynamic hair to mesh, which can help with the rarely used by others Carrara NPR render engine.

- classic approach - conforming figures and parented props made from relatively simple meshes that are parented/conformed to the head. These rely on transmaps for details like hair fringe. This type of hair is very common. A Poser artist named Kazaburo was making great transmapped hair decades ago. Some current hair figures are essentially still this same approach. I have a whole folder of this type of hair that was made for V4 that I have converted for use with Genesis and Genesis 2 using the transfer utility in Studio. In Carrara, they load and conform/parent like any other figure or prop. Load times and conforming times (morph projection) are directly related to the complexity of the underlying mesh, but many of these have relatively simple meshes and load/morph relatively quickly. Like any other item made for Poser or Studio, some tweaks have to be done for the shaders. Generally, only have to tweak once and then save a global Carrara shader to the broser.

Here is an example of Daz's fairytale hair that was made for V4. It is a conforming figure, relatively high density as these things go, but loads and performs well in Carrara.

- Once a conforming/pareted hair (in this case converted from V4 to Genesis 2 using Studio) is loaded and conformed to Genesis 2 in Carrara like any other item, you can change the hair color using the Daz material pose presets. Highlight the hair figure subfolder (not actor) and double click the material preset in your content folder. In the attached, I changed from the default color to blonde by using this selection and double click method.

- Like any other item designed for either Poser or Daz Studio, it is best to tweak the shaders for Carrara. Here you can see that the default materials for the Fairytale hair look too smooth plasti, and shiny.

- To tweak for Carrara, now select the actor level of the hair model, and go to the shader room and check the settings. For this hair model, the default load has white highlights (equal to 100%), almost zero shiny, and the default bump actually is zero. You can confirm that a transmap did load in the alpha channel and other settings as desired.

- For this example, I adjusted the shaders for the front right strands of hair. I decreased the highlight and increased shiny and bump. In this test render, compare the adjusted hair tothe unadjusted.

- Once satisfied with your Carrara tweaks for all sections of hair, you can save the global settings for all sections by clicking and dragging from the multicolored sphere to the shader folder of your lower browser.

Even though that example was for V4 hair, the same principles apply to transmapped mesh hair designed for Genesis, Genesis 2, etc.

Tynkere · February 2019

Wow! Lot of replies. I guess I’m not getting e-mail alerts.

Anyway...

Wendy - thanks for heads up about hair and I also followed your advice about Jane/John I read from another topic. If I do rigging conversion in DS and it loads in Car. -- then I save and come back the next day... The shoes (toes) got completely distorted. Ideas?

3DAGE - Good to know about saves.

Also very useful about scene size. In challenge, I had to add a two very large props to hide brown horizon line. I had been thinking “there’s got to be an easier way!” Will try that.

Diomede - Very special thanks. Peoples time is valuable. Just want you to know that your taking the time to type in such detail and provide screenshots very much appreciated. Copy, paste, and into a PDF it goes! Added benefit about hair like that-- a light behind an actor to highlight hair would show better? In the render, have it ramped up to max of 2000 I think. Just not showing through hair so will be eager to try your suggestion!

BunyIP02 - So if converting the rigging for G3-G8 items doesn’t work as expected, you gave me a hint about Hexagon? If so, then thanks! Sending to Hexagon & convert to .obj prop *then* save as subset: not getting any weird distortion when I open a saved file. At least one problem solved, but as with Wendy (or anyone else of course) -- ideas on why the converted clothes would load correctly from subset, but when open a saved file, wardorbe seems hit or miss?

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So at present, skin for G3-G8 has me stumped. “Jane/V7” looks like she has a hangover and anemic.

Hat’s off to anyone who can pose and tweak exclusively in Carrara. All those bones! Can you hide them?

Any suggestions welcome at this point. For the amount of time that went into it, this is easily the worst render I’ve done in any app-- poser’s FF & SF or DS with 3DL or iRay.

Notice presets available through store. Only I can make the final decision, but 'shader' packs for V4/M5 though G2F/M. Worth picking one up to learn the settings, or a waste of money since probably trying to reinvent the wheel?

Hope all that makes sense. Just finished up with this one, am tired, but wanted to post it before I can self censor. : 0 !

Thanks for reading

Bunyip02 · February 2019

There are a few ways of using Hexagon in the work-flow, I am still experimenting with one, if I get good enough results from it will post a tutorial.

Clothing Workaround Stezza's method - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3995386/#Comment_3995386

System 46 - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3755401/#Comment_3755401

Shader packs purchase is up to you, but I have found the one's I have purchased extremely helpful in learning how to apply shaders. Have also learnt a lot by exploring the shaders in the Carrara scenes I have bought/downloaded.

Another thing that can help with skins is Subsurface Scattering

When using multiple Genesis figures in Carrara a saved file can be subject to Genesis bloat (especially if your Genesis figures have lots of morphs) that will cause a saved file to not load with an error message. 4,194,334 KB is the dreaded figure. If I have a busy scene I save it then check in Windows Explorer to see what the size is before I close down. If over the dreaded figure I do some copying/deleting of the scene.

Genesis bloat solution - https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/298236/genesis-morphs-eraser-plugin#latest

Bunyip02 · February 2019

Horizon line - is a bit high with default setting

Default 0

Changed to -70000 cm

Tynkere · February 2019

Thanks for the links and horizon setting will be very helpful.

Meanwhile, can't help thinking you’d have to be very very determined to use g3 and g8.

Best get a handle on materials like skin first, but even then. Just sending to Hex & back obviously that easy. : /

Appreciate the help!

I was experimenting with morphs before I got the e-mail.

Bunyip02 · February 2019

Tynkere said:

Thanks for the links and horizon setting will be very helpful.

Meanwhile, can't help thinking you’d have to be very very determined to use g3 and g8.

Best get a handle on materials like skin first, but even then. Just sending to Hex & back obviously that easy. : /

Appreciate the help!

I was experimenting with morphs before I got the e-mail.

Extreme poses can be hazardous to clothing.

Have you tried using Poke-Away at all ?

https://www.daz3d.com/poke-away3-for-genesis-3-female

https://www.daz3d.com/poke-away3-for-genesis-3-male

Bunyip02 · February 2019

Realistic skins are not one of my main areas (I'm normally into NPR), but others such as magaremoto have been getting excellent results https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4353841/#Comment_4353841

Did a basic comparison of G2F with a base skin and Ringo Monfort's DP Victoria 6 Carrara Shaders which have a nice Subsurface Scattering addition to the shaders https://www.daz3d.com/dp-victoria-6-carrara-shaders

Other users who enjoy working with Photo-Realistic are welcome to update the render settings !

Tynkere · February 2019

Thanks for tips on skin. She seems to have more highlights and better texture?

Maybe could learn from it for “Mystarra’s” characters?

Meanwhile, I was testing “Jane & John” to see how they would do for Darius and Monique.

Put some props in scene and the “Genesis bloat” you warned me about? File is 468MB. Remember to ‘Save as...” in Car. : 0 !

Good news (if anyone cares) is discovered how to make corrections in assembly area. (Moni’s top would have violated community guideline but was able to alter the mesh.) That’s pretty cool!

Carrara seems like the Swiss army knife of 3D. Don’t have to send it to hexagon or anything. Seems most everything is right in the app itself.

Once again, I appreciate your going to the trouble of helping me like this. Am sure you could be doing other things. :)

--Bruce

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Mystarra is amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to do them justice one of these days

Not a good sign.

Open the file and...

That's a little over 3 hours of lost work. : /

Headwax · February 2019

Nice work Bruce -

for bloat alberto has this https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/298236/genesis-morphs-eraser-plugin

Hmm that error sucks.

One thing that works sometimes is rename Carrara file to a zip - then use 7zip to extract it. Then rename fil to a car file again.

Sometimes works - other thing to do is start a new scene and import your broken car file.

Havent seen your error before so maybe wont help...

Bunyip02 · February 2019

Tynkere said:

Thanks for tips on skin. She seems to have more highlights and better texture?

Maybe could learn from it for “Mystarra’s” characters?

Meanwhile, I was testing “Jane & John” to see how they would do for Darius and Monique.

Put some props in scene and the “Genesis bloat” you warned me about? File is 468MB. Remember to ‘Save as...” in Car. : 0 !

Good news (if anyone cares) is discovered how to make corrections in assembly area. (Moni’s top would have violated community guideline but was able to alter the mesh.) That’s pretty cool!

Carrara seems like the Swiss army knife of 3D. Don’t have to send it to hexagon or anything. Seems most everything is right in the app itself.

Once again, I appreciate your going to the trouble of helping me like this. Am sure you could be doing other things. :)

--Bruce

---

Mystarra is amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to do them justice one of these days

Not a good sign.

Open the file and...

That's a little over 3 hours of lost work. : /

What clothing were you using ? If I have it will see if I can reproduce the error or find a workaround.

WendyLuvsCatz · February 2019

shoes with heel bone or something do that, I usually reapply new shoes

BrianP21361 · February 2019

Tynkere said:

Thanks for tips on skin. She seems to have more highlights and better texture?

Maybe could learn from it for “Mystarra’s” characters?

Meanwhile, I was testing “Jane & John” to see how they would do for Darius and Monique.

Put some props in scene and the “Genesis bloat” you warned me about? File is 468MB. Remember to ‘Save as...” in Car. : 0 !

Good news (if anyone cares) is discovered how to make corrections in assembly area. (Moni’s top would have violated community guideline but was able to alter the mesh.) That’s pretty cool!

Carrara seems like the Swiss army knife of 3D. Don’t have to send it to hexagon or anything. Seems most everything is right in the app itself.

Once again, I appreciate your going to the trouble of helping me like this. Am sure you could be doing other things. :)

--Bruce

---

Mystarra is amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to do them justice one of these days

Not a good sign.

Open the file and...

That's a little over 3 hours of lost work. : /

The issue with shoe distortion is easy to fix and I find it in a lot of G3 and G8 products. I’m not at a computer now so I can’t give you a step by step process. There’s an extra bone in the foot that causes the distortion, but weirdly only after you save the object in Carrara and then reopen it. Open the shoe in Studio and remove the extra bone. Save it as a separate wearable and import it into Carrara’s. It will work as expected. I usually change the rigging at the same time. I hope that helps.

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Comments

Even though that example was for V4 hair, the same principles apply to transmapped mesh hair designed for Genesis, Genesis 2, etc.

However, my experience has been that high density mesh hair using fibermesh loads extremely slowly and takes a long time to project morphs.

Even though that example was for V4 hair, the same principles apply to transmapped mesh hair designed for Genesis, Genesis 2, etc.

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