He's being modest!

PhilW has also played an influential role as a professional video course educator/investigator for the Carrara community as well - and along the way has created some fantastic new Carrara add-ons for us to harness into our work!

Phil Wilkes, you totally ROCK!!!

I bought Carrara to slowly hobby my way into eventually making some Indie films of my own - just doing everything all by myself. As many know, I was never a computer guy, but an over-worked stone guy, baking in the sun with chisels and hammers and picks. I love it though... don't get me wrong. Carrara was my favorite part of the computer, and the computer was a part-time (at best) bit of fun for me.

My first challenge was (is) to get to know the software and get my art and animations to the point I want them to be. I feel I'm getting close with that - close enough for what I wanted to do with it. But it's been a long journey. I mean... I barely run these things (computers) except for doing this.

I was working with some star ships in space and didn't like using background images - nor did I realize their actual potential. Back then, I still didn't know the difference between backdrop and background, or that background could load spherical maps to fully encompass a scene in all 360 degrees. But I wanted a more powerful stars system - not a still image. Not an image at all - I wanted Stars!

So that's how my first Daz3d product came to be - Starry Sky for Carrara - a system that I initially created to answer my own needs, and then realizing that it was really cool... I should show this to someone, so I sent it to Daz3d! ;)

At that time I lived in a nicely secluded, yet open sky area and had just finished refurbishing an old telescope that was otherwise unusable. I had star charts on the brain, and printed and scattered all around the house. In making Starry Sky, I didn't want an accurate sky from Earth, but I did make a constellation replication dome which does simulate the constellations from Earth, as we see them - not accurately - but enough where we can spot some of our favorite shapes in the heavens ;)

I love this product. I really do.

I also love putting things in motion. In fact, in the same purchase order when I first bought Carrara, I also added GoFigure's aniBlocks Importer for Carrara and a few packs of aniBlocks as well as aniMate 2 paid version for Daz Studio, which allows for more features, like timeline baking and other editing goodness. Not sure if the new Daz Studio comes with the full version or not... but I love the system and how it works.

I started working on putting the Millennium Dragon 2 into motion. If you've ever loaded that dragon into a scene, you'll know what I mean by that thing being a real Beast! I painstakingly worked out some motions that I needed for him and used Fenric's PZ2 Exporter plugin to get the motions into Poser, then used those animated PZ2s to get the motions onto the dragon in Daz Studio, and used aniMate 2 to create those motions into aniBlocks, and hence my next product at Daz3d - dB Animation Kit 1 for Millennium Dragon 2 - which has several animations which can fit together to make longer animations... just the sort of thing I needed - and now have.

Eventually I created another animation kit in the same way, but for Michael 4 - dB Animation Kit - Swordworks for M4 - which was made after closely watching how many fight scenes were filmed for movies - especially using Conan as a reference. But that one came after my first two products of the EnvironKit series.

A pal of mine from the forum mentioned that it would be really nice to have different kinds of presets for Carrara's browser. What I came up with, I'm sure, isn't really what he had in mind, but it truly was that idea which got me going in the direction of creating a Carrara Modular Natural Environment System, which eventually became Carrara EnvironKit - Woodlands, which is a really cool system that I use constantly and will use forever more.

Woodlands adds a lot of stuff to the browser, like new trees and shrubs, including dead wood and bare shrubs to help add a more natural feel to things, some berries for those plants, presets for all of that to work in the plant editor, and three chunks of land at different sizes which are already covered with plants and deadwood, shaders for terrains and water, a collection of spherical maps for use in the background scene settings, and a bunch of scene presets in both realistic sky and background map versions - even one animated preset scene with a stormy backdrop.

But the heart of the whole thing is the Base system. All of the presets started from this. It is a central terrain with a natural, yet flat central region for placing content, like vehicles, buildings, people, monsters, etc., I kept it flat for easier use with aniBlocks and matching up with larger content pieces. Two more larger terrains surround the whole thing for deeper background geometry to break up the sky line - because this Base also includes a full realistic sky system with a clouds system, which also includes a special ground fog, Sun Light, artificial global illumination system, including uplighting to simulate indirect lighting, and then easy-to-follow instructions and tips built into the hierarchy of the instances tray to describe everything that's going on and offers some suggestions for changing it. 

I've spent years making a system very similar to this for my own uses, but when I set about creating one as a product, it evolved into so much more! 

So I created another EnvironKit, Underwater Realms, and then another, Badlands. 

Anyway, I think I'm likely most known, however, as being the annoyingly optimistic Carrara enthusiast. It is a passion of mine that all Carrara users have a pleasant time working with Carrara. 

I'm still working away toward my goal as an Indie filmmaker. So much to learn!

I have been doing paid work for clients for a number of years and Carrara is central to what I do. I have done a complete animated short ("Trick or Treat"), an animated part of a music video, graphics and animations for websites or to enhance a business's training assets, etc.  In general clients do not care what software is used as long as the output stills or animations are the quality they need, and Carrara - either natively or with Octane - is fully capable of doing that.

I am an independent so don't interface with a larger pipeline, although I have sometimes provided models in OBJ format for others to use in their (non-Carrara) work.

Thanks Phil for update and great training; I think it is a good time to buy them since they seem to be on sale on Amazon like other infinite Skills/O'Reilly Media titles. Your Carrara training titles are very informative and everything is explained in very simple and informative way from great Professional and Expert like you!! And they are like central hub of all the information about Carrara.

May be DAZ can work with O'Reilly Media to bundle these titles with Carrara Sales.

That would be usefull... thanks for the link kitakoredaz

I could of swore this was in the Carrara board..... I must be losing it! 

Firstly thanks for buying these sets, I hope you get a lot of fun use from them.

As has been said, it looks like when you installed them, they installed to the Daz Studio folder and not the Carrara folder - but it looks like you have it pointing to the Carrara program folder now so it should now install to the right place.

If you try to open a scene preset, you should see the Night and Day City and Central Business District scenes listed as options.

If you don't see the appropriate objects in your Objects browser at the bottom, use the Add Folder option at the right of the Browser window to add the Instabuildings folder - then you will be able to browse and add individual buildings directly into Carrara by dragging them in as usual.

It is a pain that you have to do this, it is a Carrara quirk, but once done, you shouldn't have to do it again.

I think what Joseph_T might possibly be asking now is whether Phil's product should appear in Carrara's browser the next time it's opened after correct installation with DIM, ie...it gets saved to the proper Carrara Content in the Carrara programme.

So, if you do have your Carrara Content correctly set up with DIM, does City Central Day and City Central Night show up under PhilW in the list under SCENES in the Carrara browser, and does Instabuildings (City Centreal Day and City Central Night) should up under OJECTS?  
Or do you have to click on the File Folder Menu icon and add the folders manually?   Am going by a re-read of Dart's post of 24 April,  just before and including the last paragraph Advanced Methods.

To be fair, it's a bit tricky to get going with Carrara only content as the setup guides seem to focus on using DAZ and Poser content.

Silene

I'm looking for an effect where I'd like to create an object that would demonstrate a prismatic effect, such that, no matter which way one looks at an object, the render should have red on one side (say the left or bottom of the object) and blue on the other (one the right or top of the view in this example) and all the other colors in a gradient in between. I'm not sure how to do this sort of effect in Poser or DAZ.

Now, my question is, is there a way to do this by
1) setting up a series of planes aligned about a central axis that will render only from one side (the "normal" side, as was common in many early versions of Poser) and
2) only be visible in the render within a few degrees of perpendicular of (and naturally only one side of) any one plane?

Also, is there a way to set such planes to use a technique in use at Source FilmMaker called "jigglebones"? (https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$jigglebone)

Say for example, a series of 10 planes, each 36* apart, but each plane being visible in the render only if the camera is within +/-18* from perpendicular on any one plane...(if it's possible, I'm sure the numbers can be adjusted up/down, depending on the number of transparency planes being used, to make animated rotations look smooth)

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Ryuu

Howdy. I seem to have discovered a possible incompatibility between Daz 4.9 and ZenMate, when I'm using a networked drive to house my Daz resources.

I have the networked drive to keep all my resources in a central location. This lets me compose on a lower-power computer, and hand off rendering to another system while I keep creating new stuff. Most of the time it works without any difficulties.

However, I've noticed that occasionally when I load Daz I get that rather galling dialog box telling me Studio couldn't connect to the CMS, and that various resources won't be available. Stopping and restarting the CMS doesn't make any difference.

Well, this seems to happen more regularly when I have ZenMate actively working as a proxy server (in its system-ectension mode, not just in a browser window like with the Chrome plugin). When I switch the ZenMate proxy off, the CMS connection seems to work more reliably.

Has anyone else noticed this as well?

I recently purchased and installed using the DIM  "Central Business District for Carrara" and "Night and Day City".

To load a building into Carrara I select File > Import > Windows C  > Program Files > Daz3d > Daz Studio4 > Presets > Objects > Instabuildings and I get a bunch of Car. files. That's the only place I can find it in Carrara. 

Why does the DIM make it so difficult to locate anything?

I don't know if anyone is familiar with Pro Tool 12, but if I order a Reverb or EQ or any plugin from Pro Tools the install manager puts reverb in the reverb folder and EQ with my other EQ.s,  and if I buy any compatible plugin from any software, the Pro Tools install manager puts it in the right place, no searching.

What's wrong with Daz?

I just had another thought.   I assumed that in the original question CPU was an acronym for Central Processing Unit.  If however one assumes that CPU is an acronym for Competent Person User then all all bets are off.

Can a computer run without a CPU?

Although I guess this is technically a central processing unit. 

Thanks, Zylox.

I looked at these and they seem very well done indeed, and a bargain at the PC+ price. I'll probably pick up The New Colony in the near future because there may be some elements I can use, but...

The overall design is suited to planets with a significant and presumably breathable atmosphere (i.e. no dome over the whole settlement, no airlocks on individual buildings), which kind of rules it out for e.g. Mars. Could the ideas in this thread possibly interest you in producing content of the sort that some of us seem to crave? If so, you may find a ready market for it. Seems to me there's a void that's just begging to be filled.

...and while I may suck at 3D modeling, I'm a fair hand at sketching. As for ideas & concepts, I've got a million if you need 'em. Hell, some are even semi-original. 

Cheers, eh?

Blind Owl

https://www.daz3d.com/space-base appears to have basic interiors and is appropriate for worlds with hostile atmospheres.

Very basic.  The two round buildings each have the base divided into 3 areas (visible from the outside) and a non-functioning central core.  One's got a big room on top too.  They feel more like they're meant to be shown through the windows from outside.

The long quanset hut is just one big room inside, but feels more like it's designed with interior shots in mind.  Including rafters and signs, etc.

I'm in south-central PA and it's slower than slow. LOL Must be outages or something. Was downloading Luthbel's Vendetta and it took over an hour o.O

Laurie

+1

 

great renders... nice find Misty 

you find the cutest mojis 

+1

great renders... nice find Misty 

It's not going over the top - it looks great!  The platform is there which gives continuity with the floor, but it is purely background and does not detract from your figure.  The hint of color is a very nice touch.  The depth of field is also excellent, as even the tentacles are fading off in the distance.  You've kept that powerful negative space on the left and the central light is not too garish.

Good job!

Thank you! also thanks for your help!

It's not going over the top - it looks great!  The platform is there which gives continuity with the floor, but it is purely background and does not detract from your figure.  The hint of color is a very nice touch.  The depth of field is also excellent, as even the tentacles are fading off in the distance.  You've kept that powerful negative space on the left and the central light is not too garish.

Good job!

too big a risk for iClone let alone Carrara with Misty's addon

and a geograph too

So pass pass pass

My first thought was

yeah.... sure... lol

I've added a bit more to my render. My dad asked a great question. He said " How is she floating in the air like that?" 

My response was "Uh...hmmm, good question" and so I added this...

XD, lets assume that the machine below her holds her up with some type of force field or something.

 

Anyhoo, what do you think?

 

 

This is a great addition. I suppose the cables could be holding her up too. They may have some rigidity or even movement capability.... :) 

There's a little half circle on the top, just left of center that seems a little out of place.

The other thing is that the cables are going through her top - or so it seems. Given her position, all the "naughty-bits" should be covered so you might consider losing the top. She's somewhat "under-construction" so it wouldn't be out of place to not be completly covered at this stage. Just a thought.

If you have the time, try experimenting with a little more DOF. I like the new addition, and that you have it out of focus a bit. I think it might be better a little more out of focus so the detail of the new prop doesn't draw your focus to it away from the central actor. Not sure if you really need to do this, but the exercise could be interesting.

This is really coming along nicely. Not really sure what else you could do - even my suggestions above are probably not necessary.

thanks,I will be back after I experiment wth the DOF a bit more. Also, I thought about that too, she probably wouldn't have clothes yet since she's created here. 

 

Oh, yeah... A fourth option, of course, is to wait for another sale...

And if you're trying to combine the two offers, be sure the items in you cart qualify for both offers...

I'll take the 4th, it's ok no big deal. I've been waiting to get the growing up skin merchant product for a while.
​It was on the sale last night in the 2016 MM flashback sale, had it in the cart with several other items which I was trying to decide upon, and then around 11:20 central time just as I was nearing checkout, it and a few other items shot to full price and the buy 2 get 65% off did not work for it anymore. Sad, kinda been waiting for the skin merchant bundle to go on a good sale for a while. Had Daz left the sale going till right about midnight (as is normal, generally, haha) I would have gotten it too. ​ Oh, well, as we say; theres always another sale.