Jaderail said:

I've discussed this with others, if you are using the Terrain Editor in Bryce to make the 3D object files your Mesh Counts are going to be VERY VERY high. This one prop could have a higher mesh count than your full scene does.
You could run out of Free Ram very fast.

We shall see. Of course I'd like it to be a full 3d object, but if I cant, I'll content myself with one of the 2 elements in the picture as this is a static element in the scene; It will fade to the skeleton and then into the roman coming back to life and guiding the viewers into the ruins of the town. From time to time when entering some of the houses or monument his memory will make the monument switch back to its original splendor. I have sketchup models of practically all the major buildings and of some of districts of the town and pictures of sketches of the building before they were destroyed by the eruption.

I'll try also not to make a too big model, which I don't need as it will be placed inside the corridor of the Palestra and must scaled in proportion to the building.

Thanks anyway for the advice.

By the way, is there somewhere a tutorial of the way you make your 3d Objects in DAZ?

otodomus said:

Hi there, its my first post here, I have seen many great renders so far, mine is nothing compared with yours, but I have decided to post some samples in the idea to show that Carrara has been very useful to me, I am an Industrial Designer and I am using it for render my Sketchup models, I really dig the way Carrara works with any model I have done. Daz Carrara is a very useful tool in the business environment I am working on.

Looks good.

Just in case you weren't aware, Carrara has a shadow catcher, which can be useful in compositing your renders with photographs. It's found in the shader room under lighting models.

Hi there, its my first post here, I have seen many great renders so far, mine is nothing compared with yours, but I have decided to post some samples in the idea to show that Carrara has been very useful to me, I am an Industrial Designer and I am using it for render my Sketchup models, I really dig the way Carrara works with any model I have done. Daz Carrara is a very useful tool in the business environment I am working on.

Umm...exported from Sketchup?

Are you sure that you only had the geometry of the monocle? I've found that sometimes exporting from SketchUp can add in extraneous geometry.

Found the problem.

It was a single object in the scene that was corrupting the render --a small monocle I was using that I had exported out of Google SketchUp and imported into Studio as an .obj. For some reason the 3DLight engine did not like that one object (but this one object also caused other objects in the scene to pixilate in it's presence).

I removed the offending object and everything else in the scene now renders normal. Wouldn't have guessed that a single object was the problem.

8068 said:

Holly
To your point. When I think back a little over a year ago I think Carrara Cafe was one of the Major reasons I purchased Carrara. I found getting into 3d modeling and animating very confusing even though I had some experience in autocad, sketchup, solidworks and Alibre. I had tried something called Sketchers studio that directly imported models I made in Sketchup. That software was never developed and died on the vine. I tried Blender and was too confused. So I looked around, read 3d magazines and tried demo's of software. So many of the 3d magazines I looked at and Daz's site is so fantasy Character and Scene based that it was very difficult to tell for a newbie what the software can do, and more importantly can it render close to photorealistic ( if one had the chops to create such an image) or does it fall more in the video game appearance. I think the Carrara Cafe, and the C3d magazine settled this issue for me.
I like the broad range of renders represented, Architectural, technical, fantasy. I've invested many hours in learning Carrara, and it does what I need beautifully. I would like to see the software continue development. Right now it seems that Carrara is a bit under appreciated in the 3d world, and I think Carrara Cafe presents a very clear representation of what the software is capable of. Which is very different then how Carrara is represented on Daz's own website, and to some degree this fourm.
8068

can I have some of what ever you are smoking !

Holly
To your point. When I think back a little over a year ago I think Carrara Cafe was one of the Major reasons I purchased Carrara. I found getting into 3d modeling and animating very confusing even though I had some experience in autocad, sketchup, solidworks and Alibre. I had tried something called Sketchers studio that directly imported models I made in Sketchup. That software was never developed and died on the vine. I tried Blender and was too confused. So I looked around, read 3d magazines and tried demo's of software. So many of the 3d magazines I looked at and Daz's site is so fantasy Character and Scene based that it was very difficult to tell for a newbie what the software can do, and more importantly can it render close to photorealistic ( if one had the chops to create such an image) or does it fall more in the video game appearance. I think the Carrara Cafe, and the C3d magazine settled this issue for me.
I like the broad range of renders represented, Architectural, technical, fantasy. I've invested many hours in learning Carrara, and it does what I need beautifully. I would like to see the software continue development. Right now it seems that Carrara is a bit under appreciated in the 3d world, and I think Carrara Cafe presents a very clear representation of what the software is capable of. Which is very different then how Carrara is represented on Daz's own website, and to some degree this fourm.
8068

GussNemo said:

... Did you do the lettering in Bryce or Sketchup? That's a real nice image.

@Dave: Ship in the harbor looks really great. The foreground reminds me of a croc with a bad hair style. Nice work. Did you do the lettering in Bryce or Sketchup? That's a real nice image.

@Stuart: Really nice work. Do you by any chance make tutorials? Hint, hint...

@Ian: Your work on David's multi-replication turned out well. I gave the same tutorial a try but ended up with window areas that shrank during replication. A boo-boo on my part I'm sure, it's happened before.

Below is my first attempt at David's multi-replication tutorial. As you can see, some of the window shrunk during the replication process. And if you look on the right side, towards the top, they seem to vanish all together. But it's my first try with this tutorial, so I watch the tutorial again and give it another go.

Maybe you need a WACOM(Bamboo) tablet or iPAD or Android tablet
or(with) a sketching program such as Autodesk Sketchbook Designer or SketchUp Pro for 3D models

or you can draw online sketches here (not very advanced, similar to paint from windows)

http://mudcu.be/sketchpad/

all the stuff listed above can be expensive ,depends on budget ( i think Sketchbook Designer is included in the Designer or Entertainment suite pack only) except for the online sketching link which is free to use :lol:

as for emulators request ..i don't know.

chohole said:

YUP use the alt button to click on the tree icon on the top of the screen, you will get a list of trees

Ok, I look at this may be this could be the solution; I have found at last a maritime pine tree in the sketchup warehouse, but when you import the collada file after converting the skp from sketch, the import is completely messed, the tree with its leaves at its foot!!!!!When I'll have finished my scene probably I'll be good for the asylum!%-P

Casual said:

Curved Design said:

Causal,

I am curious. Can you export the entire scene in DAE format from DAZ Studio 4.5 or does this just work from Carrara?

Do your Cycles material conversions scripts still work on a Carrara DAE scene import?

Thanks,

Marcus

i think Daz Studio can only export full scenes ( sometimes or always, only what's visible )

exchanges done through Collada are often problematic, for instance the Sketchup dae files usually dont load well in Blender/daz

Carrara's non-animated collada files looked fine in Blender

note that a very very precious free file conversion tool is Audodesk FBX converter, it can convert a collada file to an fbx file, then convert this fbx into an obj or a few other formats, it sometimes work for 3DWaregouse models ( sketchup's KMZ files are in fact zip files containing a collada file and the texture images, you simply rename the .kmz to .zip, unzip )

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855

---------

in the image below you see a saz studio 4.5 scene exported as collada, then imported in Blender

there would be issues to fix but at least there's animation

Casual,

On Friday Ton posted this tweet, lets hope COLLADA gains some momentum!

https://twitter.com/tonroosendaal/status/304967181345632258

Do your Cycles material conversions scripts still work on a Carrara DAE scene import?

Marcus

Curved Design said:

Causal,

I am curious. Can you export the entire scene in DAE format from DAZ Studio 4.5 or does this just work from Carrara?

Thanks,

Marcus

i think Daz Studio can only export full scenes ( sometimes or always, only what's visible )

exchanges done through Collada are often problematic, for instance the Sketchup dae files usually dont load well in Blender/daz

Carrara's non-animated collada files looked fine in Blender

note that a very very precious free file conversion tool is Audodesk FBX converter, it can convert a collada file to an fbx file, then convert this fbx into an obj or a few other formats, it sometimes work for 3DWaregouse models ( sketchup's KMZ files are in fact zip files containing a collada file and the texture images, you simply rename the .kmz to .zip, unzip )

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?siteID=123112&id=10775855

---------

in the image below you see a saz studio 4.5 scene exported as collada, then imported in Blender

there would be issues to fix but at least there's animation

Carrara is better than Meshlab and sketchup. Never tried the others (that includes hex). There's a bit of getting used to stuff for all programs, and that goes for Carrara to. That being said, I can create/modify a model quite quickly in Carrara's interface. I work in plastic, so cooling, etc doesn't really apply to me (though now that you mention it, ABS warps if you have really long strands of it on the second and third print layers -- don't suppose solidworks has something for that?). I'd post some pictures, but I'm currently working on a product proposal which hasn't been released yet. I can say it's mechanical in nature, and has five moving parts which have to work relative to one another. I was able to design the product quite well on Carrara. I had to do a few redesigns due to friction and stress-factors, and Carrara doesn't provide any support for these, but then again, I've got my own printer, so I can print, test, tweak and reprint easily enough.

John

At least for personal use only, such an inexpensive license certainly wouldn't be a stopper.
What I'd like to know is "is it possible" to imprint on the base [as in like how a statue might say "made in country"] that an item is 'not for sale'?

As the gaming license is somewhat steeper, I would expect that a commercial license for 3d printing might cost a little more than 2 or 3 dollars but again for a business, not a stopper.

People could use Sketchup to design a base for their models and combine that with the figure file. I have done this on several occasions.

With regards to a business model (no pun intended) for the production of 3D model figures, I should point out that current mass production methods are far more economically viable. There are no great sums of money to be made doing unique models or even short production runs.

Keep in mind, it is the DAZ user that will have to buy the license, not the production facility. The artist will also have very deep pockets - $80, 000 for a printer to make models would be quite expensive for most people. Factor in production costs, and you have a recipe for very expensive models, easily $350 to $450 each. The optimum device for model production would either be a ZPrinter 850 or a ProJet 7000 - both printers are over $150,000. I really doubt that there are many DAZ artists that have that kind of cash to throw down on equipment.

That being said, there is very little $$ to be made on the 3D printing of models for the DAZ artist. As far as service bureaus are concerned, a model is a model is a model. While there may be a bit of an uptick in business for these companies, it really would not amount to a huge increase. The best way for DAZ to capitalize on 3D printing is to create a line of 3D printer friendly content and, hopefully, create a version of D|S that is optimized for 3D printing.

We all have no idea what the cost of the license will be, but if the charge is anything like the commercial or indie game licenses, it will cost far more than it is worth.

Of course, if there is an all-inclusive license as I have previously mentioned for under $50, I would consider that fair. Either that or a $1 to $3 premium per downloadable product for a "3D print use" licence.

8068 said:

I done some work in Alibre, Solidworks, and Sketchup.

Solidworks is pretty darn cool. My pre-Microsoft job was at a metal casting foundry -- one guy there used Solidworks to model the molds and then simulate how the metal would cool and solidify inside. It helped enormously to find problems well in advance of pouring the metal.

Jvlur
This Carrara use of is of great interest to me. I done some work in Alibre, Solidworks, and Sketchup.
A matter of fact I'm about to take some college courses in Solidworks.
I'm currently doing technical animation videos. Alibre, or solidworks would really be better software
for creating the type of objects I need, but I have managed to do 95% of the work in Carrara.
From what I've heard around the fourms, and seen myself I believe Hexagon might be a bit closer to my needs
( this is just a guess not a fact), but i'm pretty much steeped in Carrara at the moment.
Anyway nice to see a post on this topic.
8068

lordvicore said:

If I'm not mistaken that model comes from 3D warehouse. It looked like a SketchUp issue... Lots of people who are great modeler don't understand the flipped normals in SU.
Open the model up in SU... Go to View> Face Style> Monochrome... You'll see that the parts of your model that are Blueish-purple are the same parts that are reversed in Poser.
There are two ways of fixing this.... The best is to flip them manually, You will have to choose- View> Hidden Geometry and then go into the various groups that make up the model and flip the normals to the WHITE side facing out... (the problem is the part may not be "painted" on the other side)... you flip the normals by Choosing- Edit> Face (or Surfaces)> Reverse faces.
There is a script that tries to figure out what faces are flipped improperly and tries to fix it... it may be OrientFaces.rb, but I forget... Go to SketchUcation and look around in the plugins index at the plugins forum...
I have to run now, I'll try and check back tonight and see if there is something better out there... Good luck.

I do alot of Sketchup modeling. There are tons of models with this problem. Beginners especially. They think,click, ooooo color and go with that. It works fine for SU but it won't work when exporting. There are two sides like you said, a white one and a bluish one. Each will take a color or texture. The side that is white will dominate when exported. You also will get a surface called "Font" which will always be white. Sometimes the entire model. These are the flipped normals with the wrong side (bluish) one textured or colored. Will stay white.

One way to resolve this is to use grouping. If you make a flat plane, select it, go to edit, make group. The entire plane will then select with edges. Now texture or color it and it will export with that color or texture on both sides everytime. I group everything. Make a room, make a wall plane, cut your window or door way, now group it. Now pull out the wall for thickness. Now texture it all one color, OR, go to edit, edit group, open the group up and color inside wall part, and use a brick texture on the outside wall part. click the group off and it will hold the color and bricks in place. It can get complicated, but gets easy after you learn how to work with groups...also you can group something, like a table leg, then go to edit, copy, paste into place, and it will duplicate the leg on top of the other one, then just use the arrows on your keyboard to move them side to side or up and down. This makes a precise placement. I do this for tires on cars, you can even flip the tire in edit also.

The person who made this car must have either converted it from a .3ds file or .obj file and just didn't know about grouping correctly. I have made hundreds of models in SU and never had a single complaint on import of the .obj files from any program user. This is the key...grouping!

Daz Studio 3.1 import and rendered:

If I'm not mistaken that model comes from 3D warehouse. It looked like a SketchUp issue... Lots of people who are great modeler don't understand the flipped normals in SU.
Open the model up in SU... Go to View> Face Style> Monochrome... You'll see that the parts of your model that are Blueish-purple are the same parts that are reversed in Poser.
There are two ways of fixing this.... The best is to flip them manually, You will have to choose- View> Hidden Geometry and then go into the various groups that make up the model and flip the normals to the WHITE side facing out... (the problem is the part may not be "painted" on the other side)... you flip the normals by Choosing- Edit> Face (or Surfaces)> Reverse faces.
There is a script that tries to figure out what faces are flipped improperly and tries to fix it... it may be OrientFaces.rb, but I forget... Go to SketchUcation and look around in the plugins index at the plugins forum...
I have to run now, I'll try and check back tonight and see if there is something better out there... Good luck.

music2u4u said:

It's all sketchup, and I rendered these in DS. The body is seperate, interior, dash, Frame, front end,and rear end are seperate. It was all made by the same guy, so all the parts fit together. Problem is...it's all together too big a file for the warehouse, so he uploaded the parts seperate. I just exported each part as .3ds, took each through Poseray to smooth it out, then exported as .obj files and assembled it in DS. No postwork was used in the renders. This is how it looks in DS. I had recolored all the suspension and frame parts but forgot to save it after all that work...what a dummy! Lots of mat zones avail. Only set back is the doors and hood don't open.

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/search?uq=0651046356747492437413584&scoring=m

:-)

Thanks for that info. Thought maybe you hit on something good that would work for Poser so I tried it. No luck. Still came out looking just as if I had exported it from Sketchup as an obj file. Most of the car has reversed polys. Even tried fixing that in PoseRay with no luck.