Thanks Horo and Art

Slepalex – wow amazing renders and the textures especially on the grapes is awesome.

Horo – love the mammoth render, interesting experiments with the lens and distortion filters, the lighting of the landscape is awesome

David – very intriguing space scenes, All your renders are awesome, I especially like the retro_rocket 5 and the overly dramatic sunset renders.

A Cloudcity render with a difference…. The Aliencity model is from Sketchup Warehouse.

I imported a small room I made in Sketchup for an interior scene. I'm used to using render engines based on physics where we get light bouncing in the scene like in real life giving good ambient lighting and caustics. What is the closest we can get to this in 3DLight? I'm trying to fake it by setting lights all around the place but it just feels and look wrong. Light is only effecting from the direction of light sources with no bounce leaving very dark shadows. I want some accurate lighting in my scenes.

I read that there's Uberenvironment built in to Daz for this purpose but I don't see it anywhere in my library (4.7). Where can I find it? If I were to get it, would it help in this case or would the light be confined outside the room?

I'm open to any suggestions.

Garstor said:

Mythmaker said:

(The only *very shallow* reason I ignored it for so long was due to the ugly dated GUI)

It's not just ugly - it is buggy almost to the point of being unusable.

People think Carrara is such a bargain...well, you get what you pay for! A cheap program that is ugly, buggy and a decade behind the times with zero prospects for being updated; or you buy a program with an active development team that listens to its user base and keeps the program stable and modernized.

Awww I detect a lot of love in your angsti-ness (such a word?)

Carrara IS a bargain. It's a great companion to ZBrush users and a totally under-marketed Sketchup replacement with internal radiosity render and proper UV. FormZ is selling for $500, with no rigged animation feature to speak off. I wish Carrara had as much dev attention as DS.

I almost gave up on DS by 4.5, but DS4.7 surprised me. So who knows. Ommmm lol

And just in case a heroic programmer pass by here - hello hello there is a demand for 3D mouse for Carrara Zbrush and IClone.

Garstor said:

That Other Persona said:

I came to Carrara from SketchUp, where I used a 3D mouse. It took some getting used to using a keyboard again to navigate

I can't live without my 3D mouse in LightWave. I reach for it intuitively...even in other programs.

Oh my goodness. I used to think I was the only one "intuitively reaching for tools with implemented 3D mouse". These days I keep bumping into seasoned users who say the same. lol. Today I discovered Form-Z, a repackaged Sketchup cousin that also include 3D mouse in its pro version.

I came from DS where the 3D mouse joy (and custom scriptable UI) compensated for 10 thousand sliders and mysteriously buried buttons pains. Then I "discovered" Carrara, an unjustly sidelined app which does almost everything. (The only *very shallow* reason I ignored it for so long was due to the ugly dated GUI)

Now the only Very Crucial Issues I have with Carrara
- No DS style IPR to compensate for dated real-time preview render
- No DS style 3D mouse to compensate for un-customisable UI (Navigation overall sucks big time in Carrara and I say that as a ZBrush diehard)
- Weight mapping needs fixing (esp next to Iclone's Nvidia Apex Clothing Physx)

Yet Carrara's issues are not hard to fix. So it remains, if they want to fix it or not.

I love 3d mouse so much I tried to mess with other 3D app's scripts to see if it would work with Carrara or ZBrush. Ambitious I know. Fails...

I continue to envy Blender and other freeware users who get 3D mouse. I would pay for 3D mouse plugin for Carrara, like I paid for GoZ. But since there's no sign of that happening I'm spending my pocket money on IClone 6.

That Other Persona said:

I came to Carrara from SketchUp, where I used a 3D mouse. It took some getting used to using a keyboard again to navigate

I can't live without my 3D mouse in LightWave. I reach for it intuitively...even in other programs.

Ui is a tricky area; what is great for some users is disliked by others. When we know one or two apps well and then move to a new one, there are surprises and lots of carried over expectations. I find Carrara to be OK. There are some elements of Daz's that I like but overall I prefer Carrara.

I came to Carrara from SketchUp, where I used a 3D mouse. It took some getting used to using a keyboard again to navigate, but the mouse is now in a cabinet, hibernating. For the first time in a long time, I also didn't upgrade to the newest SU; it is all Carrara now. There is still a lot I need to learn, and I am still artistically challenged (this likely will never change!). Carrara is also a lot cheaper than SU, and I can bring my creations (however untalented) to life with animation and lip-sync, which SU cannot dream of. There are some thigns that SU is lig

That said, I would love to see some improvements to Carrara. First up, I would love to have my 3D mouse work with it. The UI needs tweaking to look good on modern displays that are large (27 inches). Render nodes should work with any render, not just in the batch renderer. Fluids are a must, with floating objects. Better smoke and fire. And a physics engine that doesn't explode the wall of bricks upon start of animation... long before the wrecking ball hits it! The user guide number should match the software purchased (my software 8.5 came with a guide for 7). Oh, and multiple audio tracks.

There are more things I could say, but will leave it at this. Some things could be fixed in the current bug-fix efforts (which I hope are still continuing???).

Yes, Carrara looks dated. Yes, it seems that Daz doesn't care about it anymore. But, it does do some great work; there are some users here who work almost entirely in Carrara professionally and they seem to like it.

First thread on this forum. Just got here looking to learn more about working with DAZ3d. I am coming from using a lot of other 3d software mainly zbrush, modo and 3d coat. I also use photoshop and sketchup and I will share my work here and you can maybe watch me begin to learn daz3d and incorporate this into my work. Here is my first anything with daz3d, ever... thanks and feedback welcome.

Richard Haseltine said:

It rather sounds as if the couch was UV mapped and the kitchen wasn't - not being familiar with SketchUp I can't tell you how to check and correct that.

It rather sounds as if the couch was UV mapped and the kitchen wasn't - not being familiar with SketchUp I can't tell you how to check and correct that.

I imported a couch I made in Sketchup in one project and everything imported fine with the texture showing. In another project I imported a kitchen made in Sketchup and everything comes in white. I see the textures listed in the surfaces tab but they do not show in the viewport or render like the couch which was imported the exact same way. Also I notice the textures are not showing in the diffuse channels of the surfaces causing a manual assignment to each. In a complex model that would be very tedious. The kitchen obviously have a lot more materials to show while the couch only have 1. Not sure if the complexity would have something to do with it but now I am confused. What is there to know about OBJ model import?

Yeah, I agree with the previous post...

1- ask yourself, do you think you could assemble an inkjet printer without problems, now take that from 2D to 3D... Remember an inkjet requires precise calibration to work properly in 2D.
A friend of mine who is a pretty good electronics engineer, put together one of the better known kits... (maybe an early RepRap)... According to him it works, but it was a pain and if he could do it over he would have just purchased it assembled, since the price difference was not all that big.
Some people do prefer to build their own... Some kits are easier than others...

2- That free software is SketchUp... And that will most likely be for SketchUp Make (free), not SketchUp Pro which is $500... Pro is better suited to produce a solid 3D object "right out of the box", but free and pro would require you to do some digging through the plugins list at SketchUcation's plugin archive (the plugins are all free BTW) and understanding how to use and install them (not hard, but not "instant")...
Plus, to be able to make (print) solid 3D objects in SketchUp, you really should have some experience in producing "clean" closed hull models, otherwise some of SU's natural little quirks will hamper your efforts (reversed faces, hidden geometry, internally trapped faces, and native n-gon geometry). SU is not hard to learn, but I do know that you definitely have to do a bit of tinkering to get good results.

3- The free items seem like standard trade show giveaway junk.

4- Parts on a monthly basis? That just sounds a little too much like something from a 50s comic book... "Order now and you'll get one part for your personal mini-sub every month and in no time you'll be king of the seas, discovering ancient underwater cities!"

5- The free filament spools (plastic for making stuff) seem way too good to be true, probably they are only a foot or two of material... A regular spool runs around $30 in these parts, and here they appear to be giving away 6 or 7 spools...
I would guess they would really only be enough to produce, something very, very small...

6- A 4 gig flash drive... Wow!... I just picked up a 16 GB for $4.

7- The tools look a little bit "99 cent store"... And if you don't already own those very same tools (as well as a few more) you probably should not be assembling a 3D printer.

8- EDITED THIS- maximum print size is average.

9- "Can't wait to get your printer built? Get your designs printed by our friends at..."Sounds a little like "When you finally give up on making this thing work, let these guys with a real printers do it for a fee"... Which is a service which there is no short supply of...

Okay, I'm just picking on the gimmicky sales pitch, but to be honest, most gimmicky sales pitches, pitch gimmicky stuff... When I see an ad that I can easily pick apart, I tend to dismiss it and what it's pitching.
This thing could go together smoother than bread and butter and print like a gem, but the alternative is you are stuck with a product you assembled and then are left with the blame of it not working properly if there is a problem.
I'd save my cash for a while longer, there are more printers coming on the market every day. I don't know if you are a U.S. resident, but just last month I went in to Best Buy and found they have a whole display and are selling 3D printers in the store as well as online... The cheapest is around $500 and change... That's a pretty big step in 3D printers coming into the mainstream.

That's all just an opinion based on a quick look at the site...but that more or less what was asked for.

EDITED TO ADD... Okay, I looked into it a little more... There is no actual mention (in writing, I did not watch the video), but based on the subscription that runs up to at least 59 issues, you'll pay at least $625 USD... Or more, the circuit boards are slightly more for shipping, and there is no mention of the ultimate number of issues required to complete the machine...
So that's four issues every for weeks, for at least 59 issues...
Ooooookay.
If one were to opt to purchase the assembled 3D printer, it would be over $1,000 USD...
There are several known and reviewed brands available for that price... all that produce decent results.
That price is pre order.... Shipping in April 2015.
There is also no oblivious mention of the printer's resolution.
The layer thickness is normal (0.2 mm) for this size machine, but there are thousand dollar machines (even one $700 machine) that go down to 0.1 mm.
The print speed seems a little slow for the machine's price.
The printed object's size is listed as more or less 5.25" x 5.25" x 5.25" square... Which is about average.

My principal interest in Daz3d was tweaked by a couple things.

Being an iclone user I was directed to the earth sculptor application for building terrains, which I purchased and used.
THe results have always been second rate.
Then couple months back iclone went to image height maps using earth sculptor and voila ... opened a whole new area fro me.
Still the tools in Earth Sculptor require alot of massage to get a half decent terrain kinda like Sculptris.

I found a youtube video on Carrara terrain building with export to iclone. It was excellent presentation and the quality of terrain was very excellent. This triggered my interest in Carrara. Wendy was always sharing on the Iclone forums as well with good tips and information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_AlabvKbt4

When I bought the Carrara I soon realized I needed help, so I Bought the Carrara 7.5 pro tutor by Mark Bremmer. Excellent tutorial series.
I was finished with the tutor and was working with the Carrara...then Daz3d did the promotion on the tutorials. Perfect timing.

I Bought all the PhilW's Carrara and as many Bryce tutorials as felt I would need. Yes. I don't need advanced Carrara or Bryce now. The prices were a 70% discount and I am anticipating to be able to learn from them during the coming months. It was a matter of buy it now and save money or wait and pay higher prices.

One thing I should say now, from my experience working with iclone for over three years. Carrara is not a Golden Child. Yet, Carrara does things that will make everything in 3d animation better for me. There is very little you can do to create any content in iclone with the simple primitives. At best, you can do some editiing on prebuilt content items. You can do some very complex content creation in Carrara in many areas, which is excellent.

I am still very much engaged with animated video production with iclone. Reallusion recently released a new IC6, wihch for discussion is a major rework of iclone. The rework is so extensive it will probably take months for Reallusion to develop and release ancillary applications that will realize the potential of iclone. I am not selling iclone here. I started with iclone and that was all I have known for the past several years.

iclone makes an import export application, which facilitates the use of other applications for content...i.e., sketchup, Carrara, Daz3d studtio, etc. from obj fbx skp files. The new version of this application will allow obj export from iclone, which will really facilitate use with daz3d and other applications.

I read a posting where someone was disappointed and thought Carrara was not a front runner tool for Daz3d. I think the Daz3d studio is an awesome tool, but Carrara is as well. There some things in my experience can be done better, but I would be foolish to spout things that I don't have enough experience to "Really Know".

I am enjoying my venture into the Daz3d world.

Best regards, and thanks to everyone for taking an interest in this thread

MalikStoddard said:

I am so glad I found the forum pages for Star Trek relating to Daz. I have been pulling stuff from the Sketchup 3d Warehouse for ideas to create my own ship/scene. Luckily with the help of 3ds-max I can export things at the right scale for Daz3d.

Just have to remember to adjust the scale setting to 1 instead of the default 0.1 value it has when you tell it to export the *.obj file with the Daz Studio scale selection.

Need to go back through the Sketchup warehouse to get the names of the developer of some of the full items that I have used in my current scene before I go posting it anywhere.

Welcome aboard, Malik! Feel free to post whenever you've got something.

I am so glad I found the forum pages for Star Trek relating to Daz. I have been pulling stuff from the Sketchup 3d Warehouse for ideas to create my own ship/scene. Luckily with the help of 3ds-max I can export things at the right scale for Daz3d.

Just have to remember to adjust the scale setting to 1 instead of the default 0.1 value it has when you tell it to export the *.obj file with the Daz Studio scale selection.

Need to go back through the Sketchup warehouse to get the names of the developer of some of the full items that I have used in my current scene before I go posting it anywhere.

Thanks Goofygrmom

Wow David I love the space scene, the space ship is nice too

A few Stills using the Hdri 4Fun Pack

The Taj Mahal Model is from Sketchup Warehouse

Is Sketchup still free? You can whip stuff like that up with sketchup pretty quickly and easily if it's just background greebles to fill out a cityscape.

Roygee said:

Hi Patience :)

About the invisible faces in Poser - I did some asking around and found that in Poser 9 and later there is an option under Render > Settings>Preview to make back faces visible. I only have Debut for the occasional testing, so can't verify. This may help you?

Thank you ... I'll check. With other models I've shared, feedback from some ardent Poser users indicated that it was a matter to tell Poser to flip normals on import. Normally I have more problems with this with "mixed meshes" [part my work and part of works by others made in different programs like Blender, Sketchup, etc.] One day I'll figure it out that is no such thing as a short cut for making .objects work between these 3 or 4 programs.

Have been contemplating the next step here ... the winged figure.
Without trying to overwhelm myself this time lol ...
One bone at a time ...
Or, ... oh yeah! hehehehe ....

I have been watching the sale promotions since I came on board with Carrara.

Carrara does a lot of extra things for what I am doing that arent' available in iclone, my tool of choice for producing video.
When I am more familiar with Carrara I could very well revert to it as my choicie for video production. I have three years of experience working with iclone...I am familiar with it and my workflow is good.
Iclone has an excellent application for converting content (3DXchange) from Daz3d content, but I'm not familiar with how well it works.
I have converted some FBX and OBJ files into iclone using the 3Dxchange on a limited basis,but the files were not from Daz3d.

How well do Daz3d application content items convert? This may be a question for someone experienced with Carrara and iclone.
There are some buildings and content items for creating scenes I am interested to use, but I'm not sure they will convert properly.
There are some very good explanations/tutors available for converting avatar/characters into iclone.
I may tackle characters in the near future. I am in need of buildings, scenes and props for current projects.

I sometimes use Sketchup models that I convert to iclone. I cannot do much with them, because iclone is not a model builder/editor.
The things you can do with it are limited in that respect. That is why my interest in Carrara and other Daz3d applications.

dakkuuan said:

I'm looking for a house that looks something like this one: http://www.daz3d.com/collective3d-modern-home-deluxe-1 . I love this house and I wish I had the dough for it, but to be honest I don't need the inside too. Just the outside. This one nearly matches the description in my book and I'm hoping the create a comic for it. Any help would be appreciated.

A few maybes for you, though the colors may not be correct, but that's not terribly difficult to change:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/68358/browse/5/3D-Model/Cottage-w-3-4-Surround-Porch-OBJ-Format
http://www.sharecg.com/v/68223/browse/5/3D-Model/House-w-Porches
http://www.sharecg.com/v/67986/browse/5/3D-Model/Cottage-w-3-4-Surround-Porch (sketchup format)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/73607/browse/5/3D-Model/Boyhood-house (3ds format)
http://www.sharecg.com/v/69592/browse/11/Poser/Two-bedroom-home
http://www.sharecg.com/v/69190/browse/11/Poser/Crown-Street-House

Jonstark said:

Philw's Infinite Skills trainings are incredibly good, and I highly recommend them.
...
I'm not that familiar with iclone, though Wendy has mentioned it a few times in the forums here. I'm a bit interested in it.
...
Can you guys shed some more light on the pros of iclone and what it does, how you fit it into your pipeline?

Some context: I'm a modeller (mainly Zbrush and Sketchup) shopping for a animation and render package. I have used Iclone 5 too and watching Iclone 6 development with interest. Recently got serious with Daz Studio again, lured back by IPR. I took the plunge with Carrara after some extensive research through C4D, Poser, Modo and back to this zone. Good to see other active Iclone Daz Carrara Poser user here like Wendy who's very inspiring...

Here's my 2 cts comparing Iclone with (what little I know about) Cararra...

Iclone has intuitive, universal, easy entry UI, accessible to non-modellers. Strongest point: FUN, PLAYFUL real-time everything - shadow, AO, animation, like working in a game editor environment. Iclone 5 isn't so hot for rendering nice stills though but all that will change soon. Iclone 6 will have even better real-time lighting and shadows, tessellation (similar to DS smooth/subD) plus the bonus of progressive rendering (physical) through natively integrated Indigo plugin. Physics and effects are intuitive, hair and cloth physics will be even better in Iclone 6 too. Iclone promoter also mentioned on Zbrush forum that Perception Neuron mocap integration is in the works.

For me personally ic6's Daz Studio style customisable UI and GUI is most exciting. Ironically Iclone 6 will look and feel more like Daz Studio than Carrara. Guess this is a plus for DS users.

All that said, Iclone is also not cheap as a toy, and for pro use requires a separate sister prog 3dxchange so expect at least 3 to 4 times Carrara's rack rate. Integration between the progs have not been the most seamless - a bit like Carrara DS issues.

Even with 3dxchange 6 (features and release date unknown), new Iclone 6 still won't have the simplest modelling tool, and their external pipeline via 3dxchange makes mesh edit/ import/ export workflow extremely cumbersome. Most Carrara users are used to having modelling tool at the finger tip, so this is probably a deterrent.

For those expecting DS level render quality, Carrara's internal render is superior to Iclone no doubt. Iclone 5 doesn't have any post-render. Indigo is a hybrid with non-node-shader hence more flexible and user-friendly, Carrara Octane speed should theoretically be above Iclone 6's Indigo basic.

Carrara has almost everything a machinima movie maker needs to make a decent non-photorealistic CGI. Modelling animation physics effects rendering, the works. Overall a technically more skilled community than Iclone, a plus (for me at least).

Carrara doesn't look sexy nor fashionable, awkward to get into, but it has depth. Whatever shortcomings Carrara has can be fixed by minor updates and giving Carrara a Daz Studio style overhaul (IPR Auxviewport, 3D mouse, custom GUI) and becoming responsive to its core users' needs. The more I know what Carrara can do the more I'm puzzled by its under-marketed, under-prioritized state. The slow update and small user base is also its greatest challenge...egg and chicken...chicken and egg...

My view in conclusion, for quality render, both are nearly on par. For beautiful characters, Daz3D wins by a long shot. For FUN workflow, fast toon or average game-realism animation, Iclone. For GTA5+ game cinematics with a lot of custom asset needs and better engine performance, Carrara. (Or...who knows, DS 5?)

For most intent and purposes in the animation movie maker middleware market segment Carrara deserves a larger user base than Iclone. But unless there are more hard evidence of significant Carrara feature upgrade and facelift, Iclone will always look more fun and chirpy to work in and kinda attractive.

My long-winded 2 cts... :)