Animation: Carrara Vs. DAZ Studio
Steve K
Posts: 3,418
I'm getting ready for anohter 48 Hour Film contest, doing some Carrara animation just shake the rust off. As always, it's a lot of fun doing animation in Carrara, especially when it's become second nature after all these years. But I've lost track of animation in DS, which I'm tempted to get more into because of all the products available. Any comments on the comparison? Not trying to start an argument, just curious about folks experiences.
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Comments
well it's a lot easier than it used to be, that's for sure
I too am using DAZ studio a lot now there is iray and Filament precisely because the newer content is made to work in it
back in the Poser days Carrara was the obvious choice, 3Delight was abysmally slow and openGL looked awful
things have improved drastically
I still use Carrara as well myself but certainly you should give D|S a try too
if you have a good Nvidia graphics card iray is a no brainer even if you only render characters as png series to add to scenes in post
I myself do that a lot and so does Dartanbeck
Great, many thanks! I do have a good nVidia card and have done some DS still renders using Iray, very impressive and useful as backgrounds for Carrara animations. I did a quick search on "Filament Daz Studio" - is it required for reasonably fast DS animations?
But OK, sounds like a mix of Carrara and DS might be the answer for animations. Another learning curve ... sigh.
Some helpful links
https://www.daz3d.com/filament-information-page
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/704931/filatoon-cell-shaded-rendering-with-filament
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/452621/filament-bring-out-the-renders
OK, thanks. That first link has a link to a YouTube video that explains the settings changes needed for Filament. In the comments, some folks are reluctant to switch from Iray. But options are always good.
trying it yourself and working around the limitations is the best advice I can give
the updates that gave Filatoon also added ambient glow which is nice
one still needs lights though as unlike iray texture emission isn't possible
(Carrara equivalent to iray emission is anything glows as opposed to point lights)
iray works without additional lightis as uses texture and HDR lighting
Filiment although also PBR does not cast shadows without lights added
think of it as a halfway point between 3Delight and iray
however like openGL it has issues with alpha mapped textures
(D|S unlike Carrara needs an additional cutout opacity map for alpha too)
OK, thanks. It does make me realize how I use Carrara without thinking too much about "how" to do something, more about what I want to do. But still, lots of DS content around ...
That's the rub. I think earlier content could be fine in Carrara. Just depends on what you want. Learning curves do take time. Lol. I am glad Blender finally got user friendly enough with it's interface. The Daz bridge is nice to have, though I haven't used it much. DS is good because it does work with the content. It has gotten better. Probably good to know DS anyway if you are using content.
Indeed. My recent purchase was "Fletcher Bridge" by 3Djoji, an internal view of the bridge of the "Fletcher Class Destroyer" which I purchased earlier. The Iray renders of this amazingly detailed model are pretty stunning, look great as backdrops in Carrara. But at ~20 minutes render time (vs <5 seconds typical in Carrara), not so great for animation in DS. I think I could reduce the Iray render time by fiddling with the DS settings, but I'm happy for now with the DS/Carrara combination.
I'm in the middle of this year's Houston 48 Hour Film contest (2 days to make a five minute video) and used a DS iRay background in Carrara, looks pretty good if I say so myself. One useful Carrara feature is the shadow catcher, making the animated figure in front of a DS iRay background more convincing. The 48 Hour contest allows use of still images done before the contest, so I can have a pre-rendered selection of images with full blown iRay settings to use for the contest animations. Attached is the 20 minute render image I used with an animated M4 helmsman sailor character in the foreground (did not need the shadow catcher in this case).
Looks like a good background. Curious - is AI stuff permitted?
At the contest kickoff meeting the Houston Producer (organizer of the contest) gave a severe warning about AI. I don't use AI so I didn't pay much attention, but I think the gist was that if you use AI, you must have the rights to whatever it is. I do not understand "rights" in the case of AI ...
Couple of different rights issues but the biggest is whether the database contains only words and images for which all copyrights, etc. are legally correct. So something in the public domain like Shakespeare's Macbeth or the images of the 1925 version of Thief of Baghdad are perfectly fine. And one can obviosuly add one's own images, or license from others. For example, Adobe has its own stock photo collection. A company called Moonvalley is one of several AI issuers which claims to be offer a fully copyright-compliant database (model), in this case called Marey. The base is $15 per month, with tiers rising from there.
https://www.moonvalley.com/marey
I just discovered an "All AI" 48 Hour Film contest happening later this year:
https://48hourfilm.com/ai
The rules include this, along the lines you mention:
"You must have rights to any footage or photos used in your film. This also pertains to AI footage.
In other words, any AI generated material that uses copyrighted material for which the filmmaker does not have a release is not permitted. (As an example, using a screenshot from the movie Pulp Fiction to create a new image is prohibited.)"