Somewhat New to Carrara Questions
IceDragonArt
Posts: 12,548
So every tutorial I have seen shows that when you first open a new scene you should be able to click on one of the presets for landscapes or whatever. However, those options are grayed out for me and the only options I have is to start a new document. What am I missing?
Post edited by IceDragonArt on
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Not sure, but it sounds like a problem with the installation of the Carrara content that comes with the program. I am notoriously horrible when it comes to anything about installation and setup, but see if we can diagnose. I just want to confirm that some of the native content was installed and your program can find it. When you open the browser tray (handle at bottom of the screen), and click the browser tab (lower of two tabs along left side), you should see tabs for scenes, objects, shaders, clip, etc. Click on the objects tab. You should see a list of folders for different categories of objects. Click on one of the folders (how about "aircraft") then click and drag one of the objects (how about 737) in to the box in the lower right. If you can find that, then the other native content was probably installed correctly. If not, then your native content was probably not installed correctly.
Assuming that you are not able to find and load objects in the browser such as the 737, you will have to install the Carrara Native content, which should be available for download in your product library or available for installation by DIM. There are up to three native content files depending on your version. The base Carrara Native Content, the Carrara 8.5 Content, and the Carrara 8.5 Pro content.
Let me go have a look. I have the 8.5 pro
No nothing at all in the folders. Let me go see if I can find it in my product library here.
Okay I found the three files that need downloaded. Can I use DIM to install them? Or do I have to do it manually? And if I have to do it manually where, exactly, are they supposed to go?
I let DIM install mine. However, I used the little gear icon and the installation tab to tell DIM where my Carrara installation was because I did a custom install. In general, Carrara-specific content goes in the same file structure as your main program. These kinds of scenes and objects go in the presets folder. Having said that, there is a way to do custom installation and add your other folders to the browser tray.
Okay. Well I am going to let DIM do the work for now and then once I have a more basic understanding of the program I will worry about adding other folders lol.
And thank you very much for your help!
Awesome!
When you get it, check out that Landscape Wizard - well... only if you want to, of course! But it's a fun way to just mess around with some options that are pre-set for us. Kinda cool!
diomede ROCKS! When you get a chance, check out some of his other threads in the forum... he's got some amazing stuff going on all the time, like these for example:
My Project: Brash Lonergan adventures
No one asked me - Diomede posts screenshots on whatever (cool "Getting Started" tutorials and such)
Creating a custom Carrara character and morphing in posed position
Large scenes are nice for rendering large vistas and fly overs and stuff like that. But if we load a Daz figure or prop into a Large scene, it's so small we can't really see it, and zooming in to finally see it will prove that it's very fiddly-to-impossible to work with them in that scale.
To correct this, Open a new Medium scene and drag the other scene into that. But doing that we don't get the sky. So to fix that, just go to the "Misc" tab of the browser, and look at the "Realistic Sky" category and drag one onto where it says "Atmosphere" in the right panel.
Then select the Light 1 in the scene and where it says "Distant Light" in a drop-down, use that drop-down and change it to "Sun Light", and now the Realistic Sky will control the sun, and you can control the lighting of the realistic sky by rotating the light around. Point it more horizontal and you'll be at sunrise or sunset. Now aim it towards yourself and you'll start to see a little silhoette of the sun (in white), so you can set it up to "See" the sun in your render. Note that this also works with the Moon Light! ;)
After a while, if you click "Edit" under the Realistic Sky, you'll see how easy it is to set up on your own, and how powerful it is - just drag the sun around in the little globe to set your lighting from daytime to sunrise or set - nice and orange... even see the moon and/or the sun!
Learning Carrara and Need some Help?
Welcome aboard and have some fun!!!
Awesome thank you! Its past my bedtime and I have to work tomorrow (but the laptops coming to work with me, my boss doesn't care if I work on other stuff if we are slow, and yes, he is an amazing boss) so hopefully I will find a bit of time to explore some more. If nothing else I have an hour at lunch. I do have one more question and seems silly but I lost my windows on the right side that show the objects in scene and haven't figured out how to get them back. I'm sure that I clicked something somewhere.
Not silly... just a question is all it is ;)
Please feel comfy in this forum. Ask anything! Have a cup of hot apple cider, kick back, render something - or just play around with the buttons... have fun!
Now let's answer that question, shall we?
Oh... have I mentioned tat I can be quite silly? LOL
That is the empty interface you're seeing. Just open an scene and you'll get EVERYTHING back! Sweet!
Let's say you went: File > New and chose "New Empty Scene" and the radio button was on "Medium"
Although there's apparently nothing in the scene except for a camera and a light (Distant Light), Any open scene in Carrara has access to full automatic environmental lighting and atmosphere, rwith just a few simple clicks - because you have that panel on the right side!
To see what I mean, just poke around at "Atmosphere" and perhaps "Background" and "Backdrop" - "Ambient" is a wonderful cheat for ultra fast renders without having Black shadows - a color fill from all directions!
Here's a fun experiment:
Like Diomede, I'm a bit hazy about the installation details (stuff we hope never to need to do again, right?), but I do remember it was a two-step process with DIM:
1. Install the program
2. Go back into DIM and set the Carrara location (Carrara native content loads into subfolders off the main program folder, so it can't install until Carrara itself is installed. Bit of a pain, and an even bigger pain on a Mac, cos it installs inside the app package)
3. Install the content
Inside Carrara, it should automatically pick up the content once it's installed. For your other content, go to the Content tab in the browser. At the right hand side you'll finde a little File button (grey file icon in dark blue circle). Click that and select "Add runtime" for your Poser runtimes. Select "Add Folder" for your Studio libraries. Repeat as needed.
With everything set up, you can double-click your content to load it, or drag it into the scene, or drag it into the instances tab on the right (with a scene already open).
Hope that helps
Great thank you very much!
I'm working on a scene, moving along relatively quickly and have M5 textured, dressed clothing textured, hair on and textured. Have the terrain at least kind of done minus plant. Added the hunting drake, went to the texturing room, got him all textured, went back to the assembly room and everything is gone except for the hunting drake. To say I am frustrated is an understatement. Literally, two hours of work that I can't find
You might have accidentally moved the timeline. I'm sure some of our resident animators will be able to offer a suggestion on how to check that and possibly fix it - so don't close your scene without saving it yet!
No it was sitting right next to M5. I did find a jump back button that seems to have put me back to where I need to be though. Not sure what happened.
Glad you got it solved!
Groups can be like their own sub-universes. May have been something like that. I don't have the product so can't test to see why you were jumping in like that.
Yes, I'm not entirely sure how it works. I think the manual explains it because I know I've read it a long time ago - there's some combination command (that's really easy to do accidentally because I do it every so often by mistake) which causes the "Jump In" command, which isolates whatever is Jumped In to.
So when ever that happens, just Jump Out and all is right with the world once again.
As soon as I started reading through your issue, I knew exactly what it was - it happens to me so often ;)
On a side note:
Sounds like you have a really cool scene going on there! When can we see it? !!!!
Well its rendering now and its really not anything fancy. Cant figure out how to pose individual bones without the whole body moving. That is sooo not working for me lol. I can't get the feet to fit right onto the ground. I also have no idea what I am doing as far as skies and sky domes and lighting goes. Whenever I try and add a sky it opens a new scene. Maybe I need to start with a sky and work from there? Is there a sky dome like in 3Delight?
To add a Sky preset to a current scene, go to the Misc tab in the browser under "Realistic Skies" and drag the preset onto the Atmosphere block in Scene Effects in the right hand tray.
So in the right tray, click on the word "Scene" above your list of content
At the top, you'll see the Atmosphere block
Open the Misc > Realistic Skies tab
Drag the sky preset onto Atmosphere
Make your light into a Sky Light by changing it's type in the drop down
Now you can change the lighting of the entire scene simply by rotating that light around
Alternatively, you can click Edit under Realistic Sky in Atmosphere and drag the sun around in the sky dome to adjust the color of the lighting
You may also just use Insert > Sunlight, if you'd rather keep your main light in the scene and also have a Sun Light
Okay, beyond all of that, don't worry. I didn't mean that I was hoping to see a masterpiece by showing your work. We all know you've just begun - we've ALL been there at one time. Well... except 3DAGE. He was born knowing Carrara inside and out! ;)
I'll be tossing you some really fun, fast and easy tips and tricks as you evolve - so will eveyone else. It's fun.
Here's my first tip:
After you set up the lighting for the rest of your scene, try this:
Select M5 and the Drake and Group them together (Crtl + G) and name the group "Main"
Now add a new Directional Light, crank it up to 300 and aim it at the backs of your characters - and off to one side
With the light selected, look at the top of the right panel where it says "All Objects Except" and switch that to "Only"
In the drop-down just under that, select the group you've just made. "Mian" in this example, but you can name the group anything you want
Now duplicate that light (Ctrl + D) and swing it around the same side, but at the fronts of the characters and from the side
Change the brightness of this one to 45 and maybe give it a bit of color - but not too much
We've duplicated it so it already has the light-linking connected, which is what you did when you set it to Only affect Main
So we'll duplicate that one and rotate it to the opposite side, change the color to gray/blue and the brightness to 17
That will be most helpful thank you! I am going to let the one I have rendering finish its at about 5 percent right now (I made some other changes so its just now starting). Tomorrow, I will see about adding a sky. Thanks so much! Fortunately I remember how difficult it was to manuever in Studio when I first started or I would be much more frustrated than I am.
Wow that sounds like its super useful!
Genesis and other Triax figures can be difficult without Fenric's plugin: Change Bone Visibility, which is no longer available without contacting him. So send a PM to "Fenric" without quotes and ask him how you can get the tool.
The hard part is that, when we click on the body part prior to using that tool, it actually selects the wrong thing. So instead select the bones from the list in the right side tray.
Rotate them - don't drag. To raise the character up or down select either the Hip or the actual character - don't drag the feet.
Thanks!
Pleasure!
Just take it step by step. Lots to absorb always. The most important thing is to get to a place where you're having Fun.
So if you're not having fun, we'll figure out how to turn that around ;)
Okay. So this is really a horrible render BUT i am still pretty proud of it as I managed to do several things.
Figured out that if I load a landscape, my characters are going to load as itty bitty specs that I have to track down. Need to figure out to size the landscape down instead of scaleing the figures up?
Fixed the mats on M5 so his torso and arms and legs matched and changed his eye color.
Found and applied the diffuse and bump maps for his clothing (not as easy as it sounds until you know where they are lol)
Made a terrain. As awful as it looks right now, I did manage to figure out how to generate the terrain and add a different color to it. Am really going to have to explore this further as clearly I am not utilizing this well in any way shape and form, but at least I know where it is and kind of what it does. Need to figure out how to make the ground look like sand, grass etc. I know there is a grass and a snow option but didn't see any for sand. Also need to figure out how to separete the mesa's from the ground colors. The landscape tool feels a lot like Bryce so that should help a little bit.
Added trees and a prop and getting more comfortable moving things around and scaling things.
Kind of sort of figured out how to get lights in the scene but need to try out the suggestion above for adding a sky/skylight into the scene as the this lighting totally sucks. But at least I managed to get it on the front side of the characers lol. And his eyes don't have any light at all which makes him look a bit odd.
I'm finding that there are several things I like a LOT about Carrara and I think that this will be an excellant additional tool. Obviously, the modelling room is going to be a really great tool ( Is it possible to put a figure in the modelling room and then model something like jewelry directly on the figure? Trying to understand how to make things that go on or around other things and have them fit right)
Really struggled with the posing, and have a feeling I will be relying heavily on premade poses for awhile as I am totally not comfortable with the whole body moving when I move a toe lol. Will be giving Dartanbecks suggestions a try for this.
All in all, it took me about 4-5 hours last night to get this far with a couple breaks for pie and conversation lol.
If you are having issues clicking on the item you want to rotate or manipulate on the screen you can always select it in the bottom right navigation tab by opening up the item in this Case M5 and follow the tree down until you find the part you are looking for so if you go down the left leg hiarchy to the foot if you select it, it is now the active selection so if you select rotat, scale or move tools you can do any of those things.
Thank you! Curious as to why there is no options for bend? Just rotate and twist I think?