How do I...

ModernWizard

...control X/Y/Z scaling of a whole figure and of selected body parts?

...lock the scaling to keep other poses from affecting it?

...add an ambient map/color in the shader room?

...hide head and all children and lock their hidden state to keep them hidden no matter what?

--MW

MarkIsSleepy

I know how to scale things and how to hide things, but not how to lock them in that state, so I'm not any help there, but maybe I can answer the shader question... except I am not sure what you are asking. 

What do you mean by "ambient map/color?"  Usually this would refer to the scene's ambient lighting, which is not set up in the Shader room, but rather in the Assembly Room. If you select the "Scene" in the instances tray you get options for Ambient (this can only be a color) which will send shadowless light into the scene from all directions (most people turn this all the way to 0% or use it very sparingly because it can wash a scene's shadows out and make it look very flat - the default 20% is too high for almost any use), Sky which can use a sky or realistic sky, or Background which can be a color, gradient color, HDRI or image map.  The last two (sky/realistic sky and Background) will show up in the background of your scene and if you check "skylight" under Global Illumination on the render tab will also provide light to the scene.

Is that what you were looking for?

 

Stezza

ModernWizard said:

...control X/Y/Z scaling of a whole figure and of selected body parts?

Motion tab... transform..... size/scaling

either tick or untick uniform ( lock/unlock )  to resize/scale body or parts.. depending what you select in the figure tree in the instances tab..

Stezza

ModernWizard said:

 

ModernWizard said:

...hide head and all children and lock their hidden state to keep them hidden no matter what?

--MW

Select all the parts you want to hide and untick Visible 

Stezza

as Mdo2010 says I'm not sure either what you mean by

add an ambient map/color in the shader room?

an example of what you are trying to do will help 

mindsong

(i like the gumby in there!)

--ms

ModernWizard

Thank you Gumby and everyone else for showing me where the scaling options live. ^_^ I'm not interested in animation, so I have never explored the motion tab.

As for my question on ambient, I'm trying to apply materials to a model. I'm looking for the Carrara equivalent to Daz Studio's ambient channel.

--MW

TangoAlpha

Glow?

WendyLuvsCatz

well a combination of  highlight, shininess and glow maybe? think Specular is Highlight, I never really figured out the DAZ studio shaders , ambient is more about how it reacts to light like a diffuse mixer AFAIK, one would use ambient light to get the same result.

Someone brainier might know, I know in iClone for example  I always set ambient to grey unless I want it glowing!

MarkIsSleepy

I had to go into DS and try a couple renders to figure out what it does since I haven't rendered in DS in ages, but it looks like DAZ Studio's "Ambient" is the Glow channel in Carrara, as @TangoAlpha guessed.

To make it actually cast light in the scene you need to turn on Indirect Light in the render settings, or add an Anything Glows to your object. Using indirect light to make the glow channel light things up is the most realistic (I think) but also the slowest to render, prone to shadow artifacts and without multipying the channel by at least 3-400% (which has it's own issues, like washing out the color) the light doesn't go very far; my attached samples are a small scene - the sphere is 6" and the light is barely going more than a couple inches.

Here's how I usually use Anything Glows:

1. Put a color/procedural shader/image in the Glow channel of your object's shader
2. Insert-> Anything Glows
3. Select Anything Glows in the instances tray
4. Set the range to the max distance your light should be cast <- you'll want to play with this and with the Brightness once you see a test render
5. Set range falloff to 100% and Fall Off Rate to "Distance Squared" (this is the most physically accurate setting)
6. Set Color to "Object Glow"
7. In "Item" type the name of the item you want to glow exactly as it appears in the Instances tray
8. I usually set "Origin" to Vertex, but depending on your object you may want to play around with this
9. I usually set Minimum Distance to 0.00 and leave the rest of the settings alone