Really happy this worked for you as well, guys :-D
I still feel a newbie when confronted wit most of you Carrara veterans, so I feel better when I can give back something in return for what I learn around here! :-)
@Diomede, I don't think it is something you did. My Carrara just stopped working and I am pretty sure I did not change anything in my setup.
@RuudL, I tried putting the ERC module into the extension folder again and carrara crashed. Strangely enough, putting in other builds of the ERC modifier, Carrara complained with the same message but did not crash.
I also tried to reinstall all the visual C runtimes Fenric mentioned, no luck. I believe something changed in Windows itself. I'll wait for the next update and try to add the ERC again...

Great news! Carrara is working again.

I am curious what will happen when you reinstall the ERCModifier. Did you even tried that?

Do you mean the InstanceRandomizer by Sparrowhawke referring as the plugin to randomize shaders?

I am trying to figure out what is causing the problem by reconstucting you setup. I've already gone thru some of the ERCModifiers source code. Could not find a problem so far.

Yay!  Up and Running Again.  Deleting ERC Modifier did the trick.  Thank You!

Back home in Arkansas and able to use my main computer (desktop).

Note - I definitely did NOT recently add the ERC Modifier extension.  I must have added something else which conflicted with the ERC modifier, which I am guessing was the plugin to randomize shaders for replicated objects.  It seems to me that was the most recent plugin I installed, and that was several months ago.  Not sure about that, though.  In any case, I have a working version of Carrara on my main computer again.  Yay.

we have been down this road before

same arguments different tool

and the irony, oh the irony

I too put far more work into stuff I do using Ai tools than I do my 3D renders using assets

and lets not even get started on the 3D mesh outputs from Meshy3D,  Hunyuan, trellis etc

I spent more time in Zbrush, UltimateUnwrap3D snd Carrara fixing those blighters than I would have sculpting them from scratch  

but

I never would have sculpted them in the first place as I would have never thought of creating what the Ai did myself 

also the one made from a photo of me for example 

I have morphed, face transfered and dressed the F out of countless generations of DAZ people to look like me

but that lowpoly badly UV mapped Ai generated prop looked more realistic in a scene than anything I could have done in D|S from a distance 

of course I had to make it more detailed using Spotlight snd polypaint and it breaks up sundiviiding so remeshing was needed too

and you know what

3D modellers do exactly this using a device called a 3D scanner or a camera array and don't call that cheating

Steve K said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

thanks everyone 

I am just happy the VWD bridge worked 

I had to search on that ... "In von Willebrand disease (VWD), von Willebrand factor (VWF) acts like a bridge, connecting platelets to the damaged blood vessel wall (subendothelial matrix) to stop bleeding."  Sounds like you should be really happy that worked ...  

I miss Philemo, he would likely know why it won't work on my Win10 PC as he created it, Virtual World Dynamics itself works but Carrara won't load with the plugin added on Win10, it throws up an error in French (he is French) 

anything that will run Photoshop will handle Carrara easily.

My laptop from 2011 still runs Carrara

min specs I would imagine would be something like

R7 or R9

32 gig+ RAM

Nvidia card 4000 or 5000 series ( I don't use DazStudio ) 

My ACER Nitro tower handles all and is a i7 with 32gig RAM 1660 video card and is plenty of storage for me.

but I'm also thinking of updating as Windows takes up more and more.

I've been looking at an R9 with 64gig RAM and 5080 I think it was video card. Saying that my 2nd computer is a mini R9 with 64gig RAM with intel graphics and it does it all for me as well. 

3deedlin said:

Carrara runs fine on W11 from what I can tell. Only a plugin like Lux would use GPU. However, I find the GPU would be used in many other programs. Cooling is very important. I have found AMD generally tends to run hot, though they have gotten better. Your thoughts seem sound. Always depends on your needs.Ram can be more important for some scenes, of course.

OK, thanks.  My point about the GPU is that I do not plan on serious gaming on the machine, e.g. I'll use a PS5 for GTA VI ... someday.  So the machine is pretty much dedicated to Carrara, VUE, Photoshop, VEGAS & plugins, some sound FX and music programs.  I don't think these are GPU intensive.  And BTW, my current AMD machine has been running great for five years and still is, but don't tell my wife.  

Carrara runs fine on W11 from what I can tell. Only a plugin like Lux would use GPU. However, I find the GPU would be used in many other programs. Cooling is very important. I have found AMD generally tends to run hot, though they have gotten better. Your thoughts seem sound. Always depends on your needs.Ram can be more important for some scenes, of course.

I'm just starting to think about a new machine and would appreciate any thoughts.  I'm currently using an AMD 12core/24 thread machine with a middling video card, and getting good frame render times, in many case less than ten seconds with standard lighting, etc.  I'm thinking a faster AMD CPU and still just a middling video card (for the previews, right? - I use Carrara's native renderer.)  Also, I recall folks reporting no problem with Carrara on Win 11.  

Thank you guys.
I don't know if I will be serious about this, but since I have some web development and Java coding experience I thought to give it a try...
I never liked C and its relatives, but learning it for my beloved Carrara could be the only way to motivate me ;-)
I'll see if I can understand Samuel's videos as they are (at this point I imagine they can be used without audio, too).
Since you confirm that Visual Studio is still working, I'll try that to make things easy (and maybe later, with some experience, try alternatives)
Yes, I'm getting everything I can that's related to Carrara, so I also found source code from generous plugin makers to serve as example.
Hope to find some time for all this, Thanks again.

(2) I've never heard of it before you asked the question. In theory it would be possible, but ... in practice it could be quite a challenge.

If you are serious about Carrara plugin development, I think you will be better off with MSVS and use the experience and knowledge already available here on this forum.

I use VS2012 UPD4 with toolset v110; Visual C/C++ runtime 2008; Windows Kits 8.1 and Apple's QuickTimeSDK for Windows

therixx said:

Knowing how to create a plugin could be interesting, but there are a couple of thing I did not find an answer to:
1) are Samuel's video tutorials supposed to have audio? I can't hear it.
2) can the carrara plugins be compiled by something different from microsoft's Visual Studio? Eclipse, for example

 

Here is the latest channel:

Always Learn - YouTube

(1) Sound was removed, but I can add it later

(2) Eclipse or any other C++ IDE/Compiler should be fine, but I have not tested it.  Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition can be used. Visual Studio C++ is the Gold Standard for Gaming and 3D development. 

(3) Some generous authors have made their Carrara Plugins open source, which can significantly help.

therixx said:

Knowing how to create a plugin could be interesting, but there are a couple of thing I did not find an answer to:
1) are Samuel's video tutorials supposed to have audio? I can't hear it.
2) can the carrara plugins be compiled by something different from microsoft's Visual Studio? Eclipse, for example

 

Here is the latest channel:

Always Learn - YouTube

(1) Sound was removed, but I can add it later

(2) Eclipse or any other C++ IDE/Compiler should be fine, but I have not tested it.  Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition can be used. Visual Studio C++ is the Gold Standard for Gaming and 3D development. 

(3) Some generous authors have made their Carrara Plugins open source, which can significantly help.

3drendero said:

The CarraraCafe post has updated links to the Carrara 8.x SDK and the new youtube tutorials that are working now (2020 april).

https://carraracafe.com/carrara-8-sdk-here/

Here is the latest channel:

Always Learn - YouTube 

Mistara said:

Here is my experience with Visual Studio 2017 Free Community Edition and Carrara SDK: so far

 

Carrara Plugin Development Basics Part 4 (Debugging of Carrara Plugin)

Carrara Plugin Development Basics Part 0 (Carrara SDK Sample Build Workflow)

Carrara Plugin Development Basics Part 5 (Carrara SDK Explode Sample Build)

 dead utoobs

Sorry, try this Channel:

 

Always Learn - YouTube

Knowing how to create a plugin could be interesting, but there are a couple of thing I did not find an answer to:
1) are Samuel's video tutorials supposed to have audio? I can't hear it.
2) can the carrara plugins be compiled by something different from microsoft's Visual Studio? Eclipse, for example

kyoto kid said:

...I actually had content delivered via CD.

Back then I was working on a 32 bit notebook with Xp and I had to go to the corner Starbucks to download anything.  If it was busy the Wifi seriously bogged down and at times even crash and need to be reset. I also didn't have a checking account when I first started here and paid for my purchases via money order..

Yeh there are a lor of old items in my Poser runtime as well as old products that iave been updated to. .duf format.hat are  now in the main Daz library folder ..  Jack Tomalin is one PA who also issued Iray updates for a large number of his older products .

Yeah, I still have a dozen or so sets of those floating around my "old software graveyard" box as well, as well as the commercially made CD-roms of the Aiko3 and Hiro 3 special edition megabundles that DAZ sold during some of their convention appearances, and a few clamshell-boxed versions of DS, Bryce & Carrara.  I wonder if those old installers even work anymore?  I know the ones for products that were used as promos for magazines like 3D world are mostly worthless as most of them were just links to a download site.    

Thanks for the info. If nothing else I would like to have these items to preserve Carrara's historical record. Lol. There you go. A great render idea. A Carrara museum.

Right now I seem to be having some issues getting LAMH stuff into Blender properly. I find proper docs for some functioning on these items can be lacking. Then it just becomes trial and error.

This is a great piece. Wow factor tends to go up with the number of rendered characters well posed and composed.

FirstBastion said:

Stezza said:

wsterdan said:

Greybro said:

 

wow....

meanwhile in Carrara  

 The word bubble placement just flowed effortlessly even within the single image.

 

I did not know Dora had pyro tendencies though, and I only mention it cause, I was a diligent watcher of that series while my kids were growing up.  We even went watch the live action movie in a theater.  just saying.

Stezza said:

wsterdan said:

Greybro said:

 

wow....

meanwhile in Carrara  

 The word bubble placement just flowed effortlessly even within the single image.

 

I did not know Dora had pyro tendencies though, and I only mention it cause, I was a diligent watcher of that series while my kids were growing up.  We even went watch the live action movie in a theater.  just saying.