I′d like to be
Under the sea
In an octopus' garden
In the shade

that's at least what the Beatles made of it, now show us what your under water place looks like and if you get touchy with an octopus or some other water creature?

Or tell us a story about a fish you made friends with? The selkieskin you found on the beach? Or how you tried to retrieve a hat that fell in the sea on a boat tour.

New rule: The use of image generating AI technology (midjourney, stable diffusion, DAZ AI Studio, etc.) is not allowed. The use of items (freebies or paid) that have been created with such technology is also not allowed. We realise it's not always easy to tell; let's all use our best judgement, and you can always ask the person hosting the contest if you're not sure.

The Rules For This Months Freebie Challenge are:

1. A minimum of  (5) Freebies must be included in your image along with Links to the freebies you have used. For an item to be considered free it must be offered as a freebie for the whole month. The exception to this rule is all Daz Bi-Weekly Freebies will be allowed throughout the entire month in which they are free as well as the month following their release as a freebie (For a total of 2 months). Also, if a freebie is broken down into multiple downloads/links/parts (IE like if the freebie is broken down into 3 zips etc...)it only counts as 1 freebie, not 3.

2. There will be a Maximum of 5 purchased items.
3. Base figures (All Gen 2,3,4, and Genesis 1,2,3,8 and 9) as well as their general morphs packs (Morphs++ and similar) do not count as a purchased item or a freebie and may be used as needed
4.Your Rendered Picture must be a new render and postwork is allowed but you MUST include a before and after Postwork versions of your entry in the Entry Thread.
5. All DAZ 3D Programs are allowed (IE Bryce, Carrara, Daz Studio and Hexagon) plus Poser for the contest.
6. All entries are subject to the Daz3D TOS Found Here: Terms Of Service
7. You may enter a Maximum of 4 Entries per month.

8. You may edit your entry as much as you like in the main thread but once it is posted to the "Entries Thread" it may not be further modified. Also, if you edit or add things, be sure you update any links or freebie changes you make.
9. The use of image generating AI technology (midjourney, stable diffusion, etc.) is not allowed. The use of items (freebies or paid) that have been created with such technology is also not allowed. We realise it's not always easy to tell; let's all use our best judgement, and you can always ask the person hosting the contest if you're not sure.

This Freebie Challenge will end June 30st, 2024 @ 23:59 Daz time.

*Please Note: Please allow 7 days from the Announcement of the Winners to receive your prize*
If you have not recived your prize, or have any questions, please contact Linwelly, Saphirewild, or Hylas in a PM here on the forums 

Post your images and freebie links here for link verification. Once the links are verified, you can post your image and links in Entries Thread for judging.

First Place: $15 store credit from KindredArts
Second Place: $10 store credit from KindredArts
Third Place: $5 store credit from KindredArts

Past Freebie Contests (the links to previous years can still be found in last years challenges):

January 2022 - Around and around and around...

February 2022 - Mysteries of the heart

March 2022- Luck Of The Draw

April 2022 - New Beginnings

May 2022 - Cozy Corner

June/July 2022 - The Secret Life Of...

August 2022- Sniff, sniff... what's that smell?

September 2022-Cars Cars and More Cars

October 2022 - Horror Movies

November 2022 - Thieves, Robbers, and Fraudsters all around!

December 2022 - The Night is Darkest...

January 2023 Speed Demons and Slowpokes

February 2023- I See Red

March / April 2023 Magical

May 2023 - Sweet Music

June/July 2023  Holes, Gaps, Caves, Tunnels

August 2023 Fabulous Pink

September 2023 Gardening

October 2023 Hallowed Night

November 2023 Wobble, jiggle, sway, and shake

December 2023 / January 2024 Driving Home For...

February 2024 The Glow Up

March 2024 Power Source

April/Mai 2024 Soft as Plush, Smooth as Silk

What I do when things don't work in Carrara is load in DS then set the item to low and export as obj

then import it still in DS and usually try one of two things

1. Transfer rigging from original item

or

2. Transfer rigging fro g8 to item

then export them as you do and see if it works in Carrara. 
 

Just wondering if in DS you loaded g8 for Carrara then added the suit to it changing weights then save the scene as a subset .. also untick UVees in Carrara 

as I don't use DS I'm not sure how a geoshell is identified. 
 

I purchased Cyclops Phoenix Five V1 Outfit for Genesis 8 Male at Renderhub. I loaded it in Studio changed the rigging to blended weights and saved it as a scen subset. It loaded into Carrara OK and rendered fine (first image) until I fit it to G8 then the uv map gor corrupted (second image). I tried looking at the map and unticking uv's but it didn't change. The uv and mapping look really strange (last image with white box pasted over the texture). Normally when I see this it's because of a geoshell. Is there a way to tell (in Studio) if something is a geoshell? I tried saving as a scene, character, wearable, etc and all had the same results. Wendy 

Earlier in this thread Wendy suggested adding the texture as a layer or operator. Does that mean multiplying or adding the image to the color channel or adding an entire layer?

Any help is appreciated. 

Fettbemme said:

Jetbird D2 said:

did you install the latest Carrara 8.5? 

Last time I've tried I had issues with DAZ Install Manager which at some time became mandatory to install any DAZ3D software, Is there a stand alone installer of Carrara 8.5 latest version? 

Does Carrara 8.5 run out of the box perfectly? Previously the one needed to turn off some caching option in the setting for renderer to work. 

Great to see more people interested in running Carrara on Linux :) 

I should install it again :) 

Yes go to your >> MY ACCOUNT (Top Right Corner on the website) >> Product Library >> type in the searchbox Carrara 8.5

I believe the possibly non-obvious point to this helpful post, is that the original v8.5 EXE installers are still available from you product library, and the DIM tool isn't required. FWIW, with some of the DAZ store programs (non-content), this is the *only* way to get your purchased products - as in the DIM tool doesn't/can't be used to even download some of them. Especially older products/tools.

cheers,

--ms

No title as I'm not entering the challenge this time.  Just an image to get people interested in trying.,

Me too Horo.  I believe that Apoc is not coming back.  We have to be grateful for the years that Daz3D did support Bryce and the challenges; not disappointed that they've now ended.  Of course, the best way to support Bryce would have been to continue its development.  I think that Carrara took over their interest.

Fettbemme said:

Carrara falls easily in the category of a cheap allrounder. 

Good point.  I am not a modeler, preferring to buy the very high quality models available from the talented vendors at affordable prices, typically less than $10 on sale.  But I very much like having the "Model" section available in Carrara (unlike, say, VUE), in my case allowing modifications of purchased models.  Chopping off a piece of something, creating a new shading domain, etc.  Very handy.

Why Carrara is still LOVED

So much so, that I bought the 64 bit version of Carrara 8.5 alongside Cinema 4D and Blender and to my already existing License of Carrara 7 Pro, 3D World edition. I think that tells a story on why Carrara is still loved. With the cudos out of the way, let's try the juicy side of Carrara where the meat is.

Carrara falls easily in the category of a cheap allrounder. But because of the quality Carrara has to offer, it never got stamped off as a jack of all trades but a master of non. That what Carrara has under the hood doesn't fall short of usability to make a 3D-Artists life easy. In fact, it has so much to offer, it takes years to master everything there is to it. That is not, because Carrara is a difficult piece of software like Maya, but it wants us to dig deeper in the software. To be creative and curious about what we can achieve with it. It's interface may be a little outdated from the visual appeal but it actually is 100 percent perfect if you know how to make it work for you. And here also, Carrara will let you configure some aspects of the graphical user interface which make it look fresh once you tried. 

It would be belittleling the power users and enthusiasts to list all the fancy of Carrara. But let me instead list a few things that Carrara still misses in the ever growing 3D world. That is a Shader channel for Luminance. I don't understand why this feature hasn't made it in the 64 bit version of Carrara. Another is something similar to Blenders Geometry Nodes or Cinema 4D MoGraph. And lastly VDB support. And to be able to handle big 3D data with improved loading times.

That will wrap it up with a big Thanks to the eovia guys and DAZ 3D to give Carrara a second chance.

Thanks for reading guys.Thanks Carrara.

cheers

Stezza said:

Carrara works fine on Windows 11Pro 24H2  

Good to know, although my next computer will probably be Windoze 12 ....

my thoughts on why Carrara is still popular.
As already described, the comprehensibility of the program. In addition, somehow everything is compatible. Even the Genesis 8 and 9 can be imported and used with a little reading :)
I also haven't found anything in other programs that I can't implement in Carrara. Vue is now available for free with a plant catalog and Creator, but it doesn't come close to Carrara's usability.
Somehow Carrara was ahead of its time, unfortunately it was never really used to its full extent. It's a shame that it isn't being developed further.

Carrara works fine on Windows 11Pro 24H2  

Yes, agreed.  I've mentioned before that I have used Carrara so much for so long that its second nature.  I don't have to think how to do something, I'm free to decide what I want to do.  This is important when doing the 48 Hour film contest, where time is of the essence.  The other 3D program I use is VUE (even paying the annual fee) mostly for its great landscape scenes which I have purchased.  I don't use Carrara's particles since I very much like Particle Illusion, available as a free standalone but I bought the Vegas plugin perpetual license. Here is an example, mostly done in Carrara, with a VUE landscape @ ~1:08, plus Particle Illusion @ ~ 4:13.

Jetbird D2 said:

did you install the latest Carrara 8.5? 

Last time I've tried I had issues with DAZ Install Manager which at some time became mandatory to install any DAZ3D software, Is there a stand alone installer of Carrara 8.5 latest version? 

Does Carrara 8.5 run out of the box perfectly? Previously the one needed to turn off some caching option in the setting for renderer to work. 

Great to see more people interested in running Carrara on Linux :) 

I should install it again :) 

Yes go to your >> MY ACCOUNT (Top Right Corner on the website) >> Product Library >> type in the searchbox Carrara 8.5

I think Carrara is still loved and is living because of its ease of use (UI/UX and workflow) and encapsulation of complex areas such as VFX (Physics engine, powerful yet easy particle system, etc.). It is still very affordable and comes with a perpetual license. Other free and perpetual license-based ones appear a little bit difficult when compared to Carrara. One of the other powerful features is its nice integration with older versions of Genesis such as Genesis 2 Creature Creator.

Any thoughts?

mindsong said:

fwiw, thanks for doing this!

I found it useful! Along with many of your other posts. (more to watch, too!)

thanks and cheers,

--ms

Thank you, and that sad music there is for Carrara not being updated for over 10 years, but Carrara is still very useful!

Bunyip02 said:

Stezza said:

tinkering around in Carrara with the cube... very hardy 

boned but haven't added any morphs 

Nice Hardy Har Har, are you going to do Lippy the Lion as well ?

I thought about it... that's as far as I got  

did you install the latest Carrara 8.5? 

Last time I've tried I had issues with DAZ Install Manager which at some time became mandatory to install any DAZ3D software, Is there a stand alone installer of Carrara 8.5 latest version? 

Does Carrara 8.5 run out of the box perfectly? Previously the one needed to turn off some caching option in the setting for renderer to work. 

Great to see more people interested in running Carrara on Linux :) 

I should install it again :) 

mindsong said:

Fettbemme said:

mindsong said:

Appreciating and inspired by your results @Fettbemme!

I see you're using Mint 21.3 - can you do me the favor of checking your specific kernel version and wine version?

...

This will all certainly become more interesting if some updated version of Windows obsoletes this SW gem called Carrara.

My curiosity engine has been tickled.

cheers,

--ms

wow, that's crazy. never had something like that

anyway

Wine 6.0 stable 64 bit

Linux Stock-Kernel 5.15 from the shelf

then, every graphicscard is different

RAM etc. I have this on a low-spec Ryzen 5 integrated VEGA and 16 GB RAM

perfect! the system I'd be testing on is newer than that, but not current - and wine current (winehq.org) is at v9.x - so, all of this working that well on non-bleeding edge (stable) kernels and wine versions is also really good news. I prefer stable to bleeding edge.

FWIW, I (re)found the "DS on Linux" thread (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60901/daz-studio-and-linux/p1), and their success (DS 4.22.x.x) is consistent and impressive, especially as wine can directly access local NVIDIA cards and servers with the libraries they're using - sometimes running faster than native windows.

cheers,

--ms

regardless, it's a huge step forward but shows, you cannot quit Windows easily

I still have Cinema 4D as my main tool and 123D, Adobe Illustrator, and now Vue and PlantFactory. I tried with Wine, Bottles, Proton, but no success.

it's still dual boot for me and as long this keeps going I might as well stay on Windows

what can I do?

Stezza said:

whilst waiting around in the que we got the que qube and turned into an alien with Carrara hair

boned and just one morph that shuts his mouth 

you'll find it sneaking around in the zip file.... to do with what you please 

Cool, now for some "Take me to your leader earthling" renders !!!

Thanks Stezza !!!

Fettbemme said:

mindsong said:

Appreciating and inspired by your results @Fettbemme!

I see you're using Mint 21.3 - can you do me the favor of checking your specific kernel version and wine version?

...

This will all certainly become more interesting if some updated version of Windows obsoletes this SW gem called Carrara.

My curiosity engine has been tickled.

cheers,

--ms

wow, that's crazy. never had something like that

anyway

Wine 6.0 stable 64 bit

Linux Stock-Kernel 5.15 from the shelf

then, every graphicscard is different

RAM etc. I have this on a low-spec Ryzen 5 integrated VEGA and 16 GB RAM

perfect! the system I'd be testing on is newer than that, but not current - and wine current (winehq.org) is at v9.x - so, all of this working that well on non-bleeding edge (stable) kernels and wine versions is also really good news. I prefer stable to bleeding edge.

FWIW, I (re)found the "DS on Linux" thread (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60901/daz-studio-and-linux/p1), and their success (DS 4.22.x.x) is consistent and impressive, especially as wine can directly access local NVIDIA cards and servers with the libraries they're using - sometimes running faster than native windows.

cheers,

--ms