General
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Central Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9300 @ 2.50GHz
Graphics
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT
Video Memory 512.00 MB
Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080
Storage
Total Memory 3.25 GB
Free Memory 2.26 GB
Total Hard disk 1397.27 GB
Free Hard disk 872.48 GB
Operating System
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Version 5.1.2600
Service Pack 3.0
Product ID 76487-OEM-0027363-40264
System Up Time 24/01/2013 10:59:08 AM
Internet Explorer Version 8.0.6001.18702
Microsoft DirectX Version 4.09.00.0904
OpenGL Version 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-0845)

From what I'm seeing, with my limited online time, is that the old Wiki info is for older v.3 and the new document central is in draft mode.

So, are you stating that I have to load each individual topic page, and save/convert it. How many topic pages are there? 10, 20, 30, more? Seems much of the information is in the form of video tutorials. How do you save those? And is every one of the a screenshot with a narrator droning on in a flat voice "click on this. Then click on that, etc" I'm nodding off half way through the video. Sorry, give me a good ole PDF manual any day. Manufacturers are simply getting lazy. In the past, even the free software had much better documentation.

Here's an example: a smiley face on a sphere. I can use 'spherical projection' to make the smiley face face outwards, but what I was wondering about doing was whether I could get all the smileys to rotate so the eyes are at the same angle with respect to the camera position. It would involve being able to change the angle of the subshader with respect to the normal of the face of the central vertex for the bitmap, and the camera. I don't know if it's possible.

holly wetcircuit said:

I read inflatable and thought :bug: but I guess it is not necessarily "inflated" like a balloon without a frame or solid walls... It might be more like an expandable camper....

On some rockets, the limiting factor for this kind of cargo, (besides mass which gets rather expensive,) is the outside diameter of the rocket. The Bigelow module fixes that limit because it launches collapsed, maybe 8ft diameter to fit the rocket. Then release the air into the module, and it expands to 22ft diameter. So it can launch on a cheaper rocket. Also, it doesn't need to maintain it's tubular shape while supporting 5 times it's mass during launch.

Once in space, air pressure provides all the compression strength it needs. The skin only needs to have tensile strength, insulation, and micrometeorite protection.

To duplicate by symmetry;

Most important, first set the duplication plane by clicking on the working plane icon on the left,

Select the edges around the symmetry plane of your object

Bring down the view menu and 'send working box to selection'

Select the whole object

Now when you 'duplicate with symmetry' it will work around the working plane.

When it asks to attempt a weld click 'no', it's more reliable to do that manually.

To weld, switch to the front view, select the central loop and weld by custom tolerance (the value may need to be very small depending on mesh density)

To tidy up; reset the working box, select the whole model and 'Center Symmetry Plane on selection'

Symmetry in Carrara usually works very well but it has a very low tolerance of misplaced verteces so try not to break it again (I know there will be complaints that it should know but I find that it encourages very rigorous modelling practices, besides which it's pretty easy to cut in half and duplicate, as you will see)

Garstor said:

evilproducer said:

In my neck of the woods (north-central Wisconsin) We can expect a high temperature on Sunday of -6ºF. Converted for the rest of the world, that would be about -21ºC.

UGH! We dipped below 0ºC a few times here in North Texas - but we usually get above freezing during the day. Had some snow earlier this week but it did not survive 24 hours. After nearly 30 years in Canada...this is my idea of what winter should be. :)

Actually, better still would be swapping between here and Australia for 6 months at a time...then I can stay nice and warm all the time.

To stay on topic; even though I am learning LightWave now, I'm still creating in Carrara because I'm still most comfortable there. I haven't tried OBJ export/import between the two programs yet...who know, maybe that will open a whole new dimension for my hobby?

I'm in North Texas, too. Frisco. But I grew up in South Texas (Houston) and spent a lot of years in Arizona and Southern California.

For me, snow is something you drive to on vacation. Except for a couple of years we spent in Pennsylvania, these are the worst winters I've ever had to endure... and of course, compared to most of the world, they're mild. But... growing up, it snowed 1 time. 1 time.

I don't do snow.

Back on topic, I'm really enjoying Carrara. Still learning what it can do. In a few months, I'll make a decision on whether or not it's what I want to use going forward but... frankly... my needs at this point are minimal and Carrara is a great compromise between DS and something like Maya/3DS Max (which are kinda overkill for me.)

evilproducer said:

In my neck of the woods (north-central Wisconsin) We can expect a high temperature on Sunday of -6ºF. Converted for the rest of the world, that would be about -21ºC.

UGH! We dipped below 0ºC a few times here in North Texas - but we usually get above freezing during the day. Had some snow earlier this week but it did not survive 24 hours. After nearly 30 years in Canada...this is my idea of what winter should be. :)

Actually, better still would be swapping between here and Australia for 6 months at a time...then I can stay nice and warm all the time.

To stay on topic; even though I am learning LightWave now, I'm still creating in Carrara because I'm still most comfortable there. I haven't tried OBJ export/import between the two programs yet...who know, maybe that will open a whole new dimension for my hobby?

chohole said:

Ah, I see your problem. When I last had stuff done I was still living in the Vicinity of London. Up here on this Welsh mountain I would have to go down to town to see if I could find anything like it nowadays.

Sounds like you are going to be even colder tonight than we are. They say -6 or -7 tonight in the colder spots.

Am I safe in assuming that's in Celsius?

In my neck of the woods (north-central Wisconsin) We can expect a high temperature on Sunday of -6ºF. Converted for the rest of the world, that would be about -21ºC.

To keep things on topic, I like Carrara because when I do a complicated render and I use the Render Nodes, all the extra computers provide added warmth when it's so cold here that the snowmen beg to come inside!

polmear said:

Has anyone used Hexagon to create models for 3D printing?

I'm interested in finding out how robust its models are with regard to creating printable objects. I've been designing parts for a robot and it's laborious work so I thought maybe I could get away with shaping using Boolean operations (for holes etc) and triangulate the resulting n-gons with the triangulate tool. For 3D rendering I wouldn't even try that, but does it matter when using the model for 3D printing?

I've yet to make a decision on a printer, so I can't check the results myself.

Tim

What you need is a watertight object with no holes. Booleans are ok from what I read.
Hexagon exports stl files for 3d pronting
Lot's of good info in this thread over at ZBrush Central.
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?65634-3D-Prints-Cheap-Good-(Free-Print-Game-is-ON-P-3!

Both cameras face each other - the central spot being the central opening in the center of the top image, and just beyond the ridge in the center of the lower pic.

freecomer said:

Thank you for a swift reply.

Yes, indeed, it does work in DS45 ... many thanks for your assistance.

When I started using it, I was convinced it had an intermittent fault. I had to read the instructions every single time :). Glad you got it going.

What a pity Movie Maker does not work in DS4 ... (Oh no, it doesnt ...)

Yes, but you can make your own to some extent. You can render your own 360 degree backgrounds in something like Bryce or Carrara or Vue, or use ones found on the net, for example http://www.hdrlabs.com/sibl/archive.html , and apply the background to a very large sphere, and place your camera dead central. When you create a shadow catcher plane, that gives you the same effect as MovieMaker. MovieMaker has the pre-rendered nodes and the ability to switch between the nodes, which is good. You can use the MovieMaker pre-rendered backgrounds without the node switching ability.

Long post, but worth it if you have the time

The issue of how to write a good story transcends a Carrara specific discussion. A good story is a good story regardless of the application used to tell the story. This is why at this point the story really is what matters most.

My goal with this project, is to tell an actually good story, and to do so using Carrara as much as possible. To me the story comes first. This is essential, because my goal with the movie is to move it into circles that will not be watching it solely for the rendering tricks. I want non cg people to still take away something poignant. Story matters most.

The scary thing for many people is realizing that there are formulas that can aid us in how we write. I am in a fortunate position due to my education and day job. Since I am a trained actor, director and playwright, I have had a lot of time to think about story lines.

At CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) where I went to school for Acting and Musical theatre, we had a class called the Fundamentals of Drama. There are several concepts of drama discovered by the Ancient Greeks and their amazing Greek Tragedies. One of them relates to what Jay was talking about with that strange drive machine the writers used to solve all the episode's problems in Doctor Who. There is a technical name for that type of plot device which is called "deus ex machina." Translation: God from the machine.

Deus ex machina is kind of like this. A story with a major problem progresses to a point where the writers dont know what to do to resolve it. So they basically allow a God or some other improbable being or entity to come in at the last minute and suddenly "fix" everything. That's essentially what that drive engine did in Doctor Who episodes. Even the Greeks knew this was a bad idea. But back then just as now, it happens all the time.

There is an aspect of this discussion that is truly fascinating. And that is, how easy is it to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of a viewer? Is there a "formula" for telling a good story?

Answer: Yes.

For every rule, there is the exception. no doubt. So what I am going to discuss isnt set in stone, but it does help explain things.

For example, for a television advertisement to work on viewers certain things need to happen First, you must create a need on the part of the viewer so they will buy your product. If your product is Depends undergarments, you first need to present a situation in which a person needed an undergarment but was without it. So you set the commercial at a class reunion and you allow the main character to develop a wet spot while dancing in front of old friends. Suddenly the main character is embarrassed. This is when we are presented with the solution...Depends undergarments...fits perfectly under your outfit, no matter how form fitting...Next we see a shot of another dance party, but this one the lead character stays dry...because he's wearing his depends.
All commercials work this way.
From now on after reading this discussion, when you watch commercials, you will see how they "set up" the viewer to feel the "need" to purchase a given product. Advertisers create ridiculous situations in commercials just to show how a remote need could become an urgent one in a heartbeat so you'd better be prepared and buy my product!

The CCMP is not a commercial. Still, it has to engage its audience.

One thing I've learned is that if a story is set around a central character, there are certain things you could do. The first issue is, how do I get the audience (viewers) to CARE about what happens to this lead character?

One very powerful way, is to have the main character lose something essential early in the story development. Audiences have no choice but to root for the main character after such a loss is suffered. Examples:

Well, I can think of two examples off the top of my head.. Bambi and Sintel

Bambi: In the story of Bambi, the little fawn loses his mother to hunters early in the movie. So sad, he's just a baby. No matter what happens to Bambi after this, the fact is that he lost his mother we as viewers are hoping he can in some way regain some of what he lost, this maintains our interest so we dont get bored.

In the Blender film Sintel, Sintel meets an injured baby dragon. While some would say the story begins with Sintel gaining a friend, they would be wrong. The real story does not begin until the mama dragon carries the baby dragon away from Sintel. Now, we have a story. Sintel suffers a huge loss when the baby dragon is carried away, and spends the remainder of the film trying to re-gain what she has lost. Thus it is the loss of the dragon, not the initial meeting that drives the story and furthers the plot of the film. At the end Sintel seeks her dragon to the ends of the Earth. but alas times change and before she knows it she has destroyed that which she was trying so hard to save....so sad...more losses, it makes us care deeply for Sintel, a merely digital character, as if she were a real human.

All this to say, story line is essential. I have seen the "early loss for the main character" theorem work extremely well in many situations, in fact it never fails. I think our film should feature some sort of early loss for the main character, so that the audience takes the lead character's side early on and stays with him/her throughout the length of the movie. Not to say I have any concrete ideas, just expressing some thoughts so far.

Fascinating discussion, at least for me.

As usual, Waleed...very nice.

The background looks weird and doesn't suit the perspective view on the main central tower. Btw, actual building of such towers, I imagine, would be a nightmare for not only the architects, but those putting the actual building together too...haha ;)

Jay

Today while working with DAZ Studio 4.5 Pro I encountered a problem that has never occurred before. I was making an ear morph for Genesis as I followed two tutorials explaining how to do that. I had made a similar morph yesterday that dials in a central cranial ridge on the Genesis head, and this problem did not present itself at all. This time however, I was getting ready to make an icon card for the ear morph and the problem appeared. I was trying to apply the Jeremy Wetsuit Material to the figure, and the results looked like it does in the first attached screenshot image.

After saving the morph without an icon, I closed the application, and opened it again to see if the problem persisted. Unfortunately it did, so I began loading other figures and applying their surface materials to see if the problem would also affect them. As can be seen in the first screenshot image, the problem is affecting all of my figures, and I suspect that everything in my Content Library is affected.

I think the tutorial that uses DAZ Studio 3 Advanced to teach about the Deformer may have been the cause, because it asks the user to change the view to shaded wire frame mode. When I searched the DS 4.5 Pro version for this I found that it was not where it is in DS 3 Advanced. I might have changed a setting I should not have changed because of this. The other tutorial uses DS4 Pro, and does not ask the user to change the view to shaded wire frame mode. Could this be what is wrong? How can I fix it?

As it stands the three versions of DAZ Studio all have big differences from each other in many of the advanced features such as the Deformer and the Shader Creating features. So my confusion is inevitable as I endeavor to learn about them. Any help or advice concerning this will be appreciated.

GeroblueJim said:

As a decades long computer tech, this shouldn't have happened. Changing servers is immaterial. I don't know the exact process, I've never swapped out servers before, but this is something that shouldn't have happened. Thre should be methods to sync the servers so old information like cancellations doesn't get altered. I'm glad I never signed up for Premium Content.

That was my guess of how it could have happened, based on past performance of how server swaps and updates generally go around here...(there was a 1 hour difference in timestamps that lasted for quite a while...after the server swap...they went from servers in the Eastern time zone to servers in the Central time zone...and it took almost a day and a half to clear it up...), but since nobody in authority has denied it...damn...I missed my confirmation.

I agree...it shouldn't have happened...and no matter 'how' it did, it shouldn't be allowed to continue. Yes, it happened, mostly over a holiday and now it's been a few days...one or two days, for an operation the size DAZ really is (small enough that most of the staff is off for the holiday, every holiday...and often if it's a mid-week holiday, a day or so before, too) should have been enough. By Friday, though most of this should have been settled...and the only way I think, those that cancelled, following the procedure at the time they cancelled...get a full refund. Getting banks and credit card companies on your case for being sloppy isn't going to help anything. Getting customers pissed off isn't very good...either. Getting all the above, at once...yeah, I'd rather not catch that brand of insanity.

Carrara is pretty much the sweetest bit of software on the planet. And who better to let the world know this than us, the Carrara community?

With the onset of 2013 we have a great opportunity to start the year off "right." Keeping it positive by keeping ourselves occupied, busy.

This is the first of what I hope will be many years of Carrara Community Movie/Film Projects. What we need at this time are story ideas. Here are the guidelines:

1. The story must be complete, in that it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
2. The length of the piece may vary depending on the technical considerations, so try to think around the 10 to 20 minute range. That's a lot of time. We can and will edit it later.
3. The story needs to lend itself well to being produced in "Chapters." This enables ebbs and flows in production without derailing the logic of the piece.
4. Stories need to be poignant, however, it would be good to avoid overt controversy. Kid friendly story lines are best. The sad ending to the Blender movie was a great example of giving the people what they want and surprising them at the same time. Not that our story needs a sad ending, but I'm just saying that a good story has elements of both good and bad, losses and gains.
5. The story needs to be visually appealing, it needs to lend itself well to different locations.
6. The story can be shaped around a central character so long as this character finds himself/herself in lots of situations.

And that's it so far as story requirements that I can think of off the top of my head. Please submit your ideas in this thread. In a few days, lets say January 10 we will have a final vote and determine which story to go forward with.

All ideas are good ideas at this point, so please lets all keep an open mind. Fun fun!

To kick it off, I will propose an idea that I mentioned already in another thread:

One quick story idea could be of an alien traveling toward the Earth from outer space. It’s always fun to open with a nice open space shot. Anyhow, the alien ship breaks apart into smaller ships, and each of these pieces travels toward a different location on Earth. traveling down through the clouds would be awesome to animate. One pod travels to the Valle Alpina, where we see flowing rivers and streams, gorgeous mountains and deep blue skies. Another one of the pods travels toward the temperate regions of Europe, strolling along the Country Lane. Another takes us to a Dystopian City or something, Another arrives in a tropical location and another underwater, one in the polar regions. Almost like a series of little vignettes each displaying a graphically specific and unique environment where fun things can happen. Broken up into pieces this way, the film could easily top 10 minutes. A team of 2 or 3 persons would be assigned to each location, and each would contribute 3 minutes of final footage by a date long from now, say July 1 2013 or something. Anyhow, the pods after gathering information about the planet then return to space, reassemble themselves into the original vessel, and leave off flying toward the Milky Way.

Thanks to all community members who are willing to participate in any way in this project. By helping you are doing your part to ensure that Carrara gets some long overdue exposure.

Possibly...but I can tell you it wasn't rigged there.

When you export it as an OBJ, make sure you have the export options to write the materials AND collect them.

Paths may still be messed up, but at least the textures will be in a central location and easier to apply.

If you put the Runtime into the My Library then you can leave it there (no copying back and forth needed) and map Poser to use it...in Poser the Runtime is more or less the 'top level' content directory...in DS it's just another folder in the content directory.

I'm eventually going to migrate my content to a central location...probably a network drive.

Here's the forecast from this morning's Austin paper:

An overnight freeze is expected for most of the Hill Country as a strong cold front is expected to make its way through Central Texas by early afternoon, according to the National Weather Service.

The high for Christmas Day for the greater Austin area is expected to be 64 degrees, while the low tonight should be 27, according to the service.

The front will bring gusty northwest winds and dry air into the region, the service said, clearing out the clouds and bringing mostly sunny skies this afternoon.

Before then, however, there’s a 50 percent chance strong thunderstorms could develop through mid-morning, the service said. A few storms could become severe, bringing large hair and damaging wind gusts, the service said.

The service has placed a wind advisory into effect for all of South Central Texas today from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Winds are expected to reach 25 to 35 miles per hour, with gusts up to 40 mph, the service said.

My hair is waist-length, so I'm heeding the warning and staying inside.

ZamuelNow said:

It's interesting the kind of differences there are between this one and the one at the bottom of page 4. That one showcased the tree's lighting while this one has a strong central focus where arguably neither is a "wrong" idea.

Still, I could try a little postwork to fix that issue.

Edit: Okay, so I did a little postwork on the christmas tree and edited it down into a more christmas-card form. I held back from making it a final submission only because I think the spotlight I used to light Sam is a bit too harsh on the floor to his left. I think I need to tone it down a touch, or add some fall off to address it. But this is how the final image will probably be laid out.