Somewhat New to Carrara Questions

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  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548
    edited December 2016

    So, after much gnashing of teeth I did it lol.  What I ended up doing was just going into the landscape tab, creating a second terrain and adding a zero to the size parameters lol.  Worked like a charm  Not too big I couldn't see and move it but bigger than the original medium sized scene.

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  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I had a different question, and figured that i would add it here.

    Is the lens flare effect glitchy?  A few days ago I was doing Phil's tutorial, and the lens flare worked great. Then I started playing with different flare effects.  It soon quit working entirely.  I control z'ed everything, and got it back.

    It stopped working today as well, on a scene that I can't undo.  Keep in mind, all the other lighting special effects work fine.  Is the lens flare effect extra touchy?

    I have no idea but I'm sure someone will pop in and be able to answer your question!

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Sonja,  Kewl... what did you do to get the horizontal striations for the rock/mesa on the right?

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    I think thats the original materials on the mesa landscape. But I won't swear to it as I really don't know what I am doing yet lol.

  • Regarding my lens flare question, I found a solution.  I turned off the effect and saved the scene.  Closed Carrara (not sure if that is essential), and reopened it.  Reopened the scence, and turned the effect back on.  Lens flare was again working perfectly.

    I'm just curious if others have had a similar problem.  But I'm happy it's working again, as I really like the lighting effects.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    UB,  you confused Carrara... I manage to to that sometimes. As you did... close and restart.  I've often found that I have more than 1 scene open at a time as well as multiple Objects in the model room.  I also close multiple shader windows but that is mostly just to clear them out of the way. On my computer just opening Smart Content will take awhile... so I'll go grab what I want and save the scene with a new name and do like you did.  I always save often, especially before trying anything that changes things, to incremental file names so I can always, so far, go back and load an earlier file... which happens only occasionally.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Have you tried closing Carrara and reloading the scene? (save it first, obviously!) That often gets back controls that have started glitching.

  • wgdjohn said:

    UB,  you confused Carrara... I manage to to that sometimes.

    OK, good to know.  However, I didn't have multiple scenes open, or anything else very complex.  I suspect that Lens flare is just more prone to glitch than the other spotlight effects.

    Have you tried closing Carrara and reloading the scene? (save it first, obviously!) That often gets back controls that have started glitching.

    Um, that's what I did.smiley  Thanks for the validation.

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    ..HI UB :)

    where is it failing,?  is it not rendering/updating the little preview in the editor,. or is it not rendering the effect in a final render?.

    the lens flare is a "post" effect, and as such it's applied to the final image, after it's rendered.

    Lens flare is also dependent upon the source being visible to the camera, so if it's obscured by another object, it won't render.

    I did a couple of tests, ...but I'm not seeing any issues,.

  • 3DAGE said:

    ..HI UB :)

    where is it failing,?  is it not rendering/updating the little preview in the editor,. or is it not rendering the effect in a final render?.

    Both when it glitches.  It just stops working.  If I then save the scene (after closing lens flare), restart Carrara, then reopen the scene and restart lens flare, then lens flare works again.

    The question is, how did I get it to glitch?  The first time, I may have done something stupid.  The second time, it was working fine, so I focused on getting some V4 clothing to fit better.  When I returned to see the full lighting, lens flare had stopped working.  So this has happened to me twice, which is twice more than anything else has glitched in Carrara thus far.smiley

    Today it has been working great.  Go figure.

    But thanks for asking.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,583

    I had a different question, and figured that i would add it here.

    Is the lens flare effect glitchy?  A few days ago I was doing Phil's tutorial, and the lens flare worked great. Then I started playing with different flare effects.  It soon quit working entirely.  I control z'ed everything, and got it back.

    It stopped working today as well, on a scene that I can't undo.  Keep in mind, all the other lighting special effects work fine.  Is the lens flare effect extra touchy?

    Not really. It works for animations as well. It is likely (not working) due to a camera change or a new rotation of the light, if it's a distant light, etc.,

    Know that the effect works as it should - so when no flare should occur, none will.

    If we want to override this realism, we can put the effect on a bulb light and stick that bulb anywhere within sight of the camera. This will work for other light type as well, but bulb works regardless of its direction.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,583

    So, after much gnashing of teeth I did it lol.  What I ended up doing was just going into the landscape tab, creating a second terrain and adding a zero to the size parameters lol.  Worked like a charm  Not too big I couldn't see and move it but bigger than the original medium sized scene.

    Wow! I love this picture!

    Can you feel it? There has been an awakening!

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Yes things are definitely starting to click and make more sense.  I have a better idea of HOW to push buttons lol.  Before, pushing buttons was only mariginally helpful, now, I feel like I can pick the right button with more accuracy to figure out what I need to do lol.

  • I had a different question, and figured that i would add it here.

    Is the lens flare effect glitchy?  A few days ago I was doing Phil's tutorial, and the lens flare worked great. Then I started playing with different flare effects.  It soon quit working entirely.  I control z'ed everything, and got it back.

    It stopped working today as well, on a scene that I can't undo.  Keep in mind, all the other lighting special effects work fine.  Is the lens flare effect extra touchy?

    Are you using it on a spotlight? The narrower the beam, the more straight into the camera the light must be aimed.

  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    How do I rotate a texture? I'm trying to make a very simple basic spear and I have applied a preset wood grain texture. Unfortunately its running side to side instead of up and down and just looks ridiculous at the moment.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584
    edited December 2016

    In the texture map dialog there's a little "turn right" button at the bottom left of the map picture. Click it and the texture will rotate by 90 degrees. You won't see the preview image change, but there's a little round arrow icon beneath it that shows which way "up" is pointing.

    Don't forget to rotate any bump, normal etc. maps too.

     

    Edit: Oh hang on, that only works with maps. If you're appying the procedural wood presets (it helps to read the question and I may have had one or two in the course of the evening), you may be out of luck: they basically ignore any UV mapping and do their own wacky thing. I haven't found a way to rotate them.

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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 2016

    In the texture map dialog there's a little "turn right" button at the bottom left of the map picture. Click it and the texture will rotate by 90 degrees. You won't see the preview image change, but there's a little round arrow icon beneath it that shows which way "up" is pointing.

    Don't forget to rotate any bump, normal etc. maps too.

     

    Edit: Oh hang on, that only works with maps. If you're appying the procedural wood presets (it helps to read the question and I may have had one or two in the course of the evening), you may be out of luck: they basically ignore any UV mapping and do their own wacky thing. I haven't found a way to rotate them.

    There are ways, but my 'puter died and I don't have my new one yet, so no Carrara...

    There are a couple different wood procedurals, one has a little pull down in the shader controls that shows three little cubes with the grain running different ways. Play around with that until you get a look you want.

    The other procedural (Lumber Yard/Factory?) is a bit more complex to set up. There may be a transform tab where you can change the x,y,z values, or there may be a slider or sliders to adjust the x,y,z vakues. Some procedurals also have a little pulldown option for global space, local space, and UV space for applying the shader.

    Sorry I can't be of much more help.

    I do have a terrain scene I give away on ShareCG, called the Fantasy Village Terrain. I have a jousting/festival grounds with procedurally shaded wood props. The items are also included in an objects folder individually. Loaded individually, the items may not appear at the center of the working grid, so you may want to use the motion tab to send them to the 0 postition.
    http://www.ShareCG.com/v/69697/view/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain

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  • There are ways, but my 'puter died and I don't have my new one yet, so no Carrara..

    Hope you get a nice one!  You are very talented.  Several years ago, I enjoyed watching the crazy animation you made about the dinosaur chasing the guy (I assume it was you) around the house. When Dart reposted it recently, I recognized it immediately.  It was memorable, but I had totally forgotten that it was made in Carrara.

    There are a couple different wood procedurals, one has a little pull down in the shader controls that shows three little cubes with the grain running different ways. Play around with that until you get a look you want.

    Haven't seen this one yet.

     

    The other procedural (Lumber Yard/Factory?) is a bit more complex to set up. There may be a transform tab where you can change the x,y,z values, or there may be a slider or sliders to adjust the x,y,z vakues. Some procedurals also have a little pulldown option for global space, local space, and UV space for applying the shader.

    Yeah, it's called lumber yard.

    So Sonja, when you are in the shader room with your spear selected, look down the list of items in the blue boxes on the left.  One of them will be called "lumber yard."  There are about 6 variables to play with.

    I just figured this out a couple of days ago, so it is new to me too.

    For maps, TA has layed it out perfectly above.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited December 2016

    Sonja,  Thanks for asking... this has been bothering me forever... I've not taken the time to find the magic potion to cure this.  After seeing your post I've tried a few things.  First I made Shader Domains... for the length side and another for both ends so that I could have the same shader with different settings for each domain.  Please don't use my settings as is since they still need a bit more of that magic potion. LOL

    Note that I set the Top Shader from Multi Channel to "Flat Mapping" found under "Projection Mapping"... note I do not know that this is right yet.  For Wood and some other preset shaders the same settings are applied in more than one place in the shader tree... what I do is copy/paste the shader setting for Lumber Yard that I make changes to then paste it for the others tree elements... Wood presets use Lumber Yard as blenders... see the shader tree pic.

    Under Natural Functions there is also a procedural called Wood... it has less settings than Lumber Yard also found there.

    I really should just install EvilProducer's http://www.ShareCG.com/v/69697/view/5/3D-Model/Fantasy-Village-terrain in order to learn how to do this properly myself.

    My poor example is not quit there yet but is a bit closer than when I placed a Wood preset onto it.  Note that the odd looking darker areas are do to Fractal Noise which I did not change.  I'll be posting my results to Shader Creating & Settings for Carrara - Q&A - Come One, Come All in hopes of finding where I went wrong and how I can make it better.

     

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,583

    Yes things are definitely starting to click and make more sense.  I have a better idea of HOW to push buttons lol.  Before, pushing buttons was only mariginally helpful, now, I feel like I can pick the right button with more accuracy to figure out what I need to do lol.

    Exactly! yes

    You'll find that, since Carrara is so incredibly vast, years will go by and we still find new buttons to learn how to push! LOL

  • MarkIsSleepyMarkIsSleepy Posts: 1,496
    edited December 2016

    How do I rotate a texture? I'm trying to make a very simple basic spear and I have applied a preset wood grain texture. Unfortunately its running side to side instead of up and down and just looks ridiculous at the moment.

    Another, much easier, thing you could try if it is using a mixer based on the Lumber Yard shader is to look at the X and Y scale.  Try reversing the numbers in them.  So for example, if X scale starts at 60 and Y scale at 120, try changing it to something like X scale 100 and Y scale 40.  This will stretch the texture in the opposite direction. Lumber Yard is one of the more flexible procedural shaders in Carrara (marble is another great one to play with) and if you have time it's worth it to apply a simple mix of two distinct colors to a cube or plane primitive and starting moving sliders around to see what they do.

    In addition to the methods listed above, you could also "cheat" like I do and just rotate the whole UV map if it is a vertex object. That takes a bit more explanation though.

     

     

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  • IceDragonArtIceDragonArt Posts: 12,548

    Thank you so much everyone.  I did find the x,y,z rotation boxes and played with that for awhile and then somehow managed to completely lose the model I was working on (which is okay since it was really bad lol). It disappeared from everything, scene view, model room etc.  No great loss, I will try again as soon as I can (family day tomorrow, might have a couple of minutes in the morning to check the forums but doubt I will have time to DO anything lol).  In the meantime I'm watching more modelling tutorials (I now have a fair idea how to model a gun) and will continue to work on it. 

    I also ran into some issues with the replicator, I watched the video, and I could see in the preview my 10 spears but when I left the replicator, I still only had one spear and the other nine did not show up in the render.  Although this might have been around the time the whole model went missing lol. Not sure how to get my replicated spears to show up where I want them on the terrain either.  I need them at the top of the mesa not down in the valley where the box is.  Maybe I need to move the mesa and not the spears?

  • on the lens flare issue,

    it needs to be pointing at the camera to work.

    you might have just changed the camera or light angle.

    I use a point at modifier on my lights for effects chosing the camera with xyz and rotation checked.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,173
    edited December 2016

    RE: the replicators.  There are 2 kinds of replicators.  A grid replicator will create rows and columns of objects without respect to a terrain or other surface.  A surface replicator will place objects on a terrain or other surface.  If you want your objects placed on a surface, you can

    a) tell the surface replicator to restrict to  shader domain and create a shader domain for the top of the mesa.

    b) tell the surface replicator to use a shader, in which case objcts will be placed where you shade your object white and not where you shade your object black.  This will have nothing to do with the way your terrain or othe object appears - you will not disturb the way the terrain shader looks.  The white and black mixer are just to control the replicated objects.  So, any way that you can control the white/black mixer in the shader channel will control the placement of the replicated objects.  The most direct way is to create a white/black map with the 3d paint tool or in photoshop or similar image editor.  However, you could also use elevation or slope or simiar.

     

    I'd strongly recommend the following thread.

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/38177/

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,173
    edited December 2016

    Here is an example.  I created a terrain with the terrace filter and the crater filter (several craters).  The result is a terrain with some flat areas (because of the terrace filter) and some bowl-slopes because of the craters.  I used a surface replicator and checked the box to use the shader to control the placement.  I then edited the controller shader within the replicator menu (which is NOT the shader for the terrain itself) to use a black and white mixer.  The key then becomes the blender.  I did two tests.  In the first, I used elevation (see environment option in blender channel).  My terrain is 15 feet high.  I set the elevation to 13 so that white would be applied at 13 feet and above.  In the second test, instead of elevation, I used slope.  The higher the slope, the more restrictive to flat surfaces. 

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,173

    Also note that with the surface replicator, objects will be placed by their hot point.  If the ho point is in the middle of a figure, then half the figure will be below the surface.  To move the hot point, select the figure, turn on CAPS LOCK, use the arrows in the assemble room to adjust placement of hot point, remember to turn off CAPS LOCK.  So, in my example, I selected the cyclopstrich, turned on CAPS LOCK, moved the hot point own to its feet, then turned off CAPS LOCK. 

  • To the model going missing, if it was added to the replicator and you didn't like the replicator and deleted it, then the model would be deleted as well since it is added to replicator's heirarchy. I fell victim to that before when I was new to that aspect of Carrara.

  • There are ways, but my 'puter died and I don't have my new one yet, so no Carrara..

    Hope you get a nice one!  You are very talented.  Several years ago, I enjoyed watching the crazy animation you made about the dinosaur chasing the guy (I assume it was you) around the house. When Dart reposted it recently, I recognized it immediately.  It was memorable, but I had totally forgotten that it was made in Carrara.

    There are a couple different wood procedurals, one has a little pull down in the shader controls that shows three little cubes with the grain running different ways. Play around with that until you get a look you want.

    Haven't seen this one yet.

     

    The other procedural (Lumber Yard/Factory?) is a bit more complex to set up. There may be a transform tab where you can change the x,y,z values, or there may be a slider or sliders to adjust the x,y,z vakues. Some procedurals also have a little pulldown option for global space, local space, and UV space for applying the shader.

    Yeah, it's called lumber yard.

    So Sonja, when you are in the shader room with your spear selected, look down the list of items in the blue boxes on the left.  One of them will be called "lumber yard."  There are about 6 variables to play with.

    I just figured this out a couple of days ago, so it is new to me too.

    For maps, TA has layed it out perfectly above.

    Thanks! That was me with the dinosaur video. I've greatly improved since then. smiley For instance I did that in Carrara 5, and I didn't know about Shadow Catchers (if C5 had one) and I could never get Transposer to work rigjht, so I learned rigging to rig the t-rex model I brought in. It was a learning experience to be sure!

    wgdjohn mentioned a shader called Wood under the Natural functions. I think that is the one with the drop down menu with the little cubes or box icons showing the direction of the grain.

  • you can have a lot of fun using lumberyard and other shader functions like bricks with mortar for buildings and streets in operators in the displacement tab too.

    can make planes into greeblelike cities or surfaces of spacecraft etc

    can tick subdivision and in 3D view and export the results as obj too.

  • you can have a lot of fun using lumberyard and other shader functions like bricks with mortar for buildings and streets in operators in the displacement tab too.

    can make planes into greeblelike cities or surfaces of spacecraft etc

    can tick subdivision and in 3D view and export the results as obj too.

    I've used the squares function to great effect for hull plates on space ships, and stuff. Great reminder of the power of Carrara's shader room Wendy!

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