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Carrara Non Photo Realistic Works

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    I love the computer you're getting. Heck I also really like the one that you're replacing, except that it's unnerving you!

    What's wrong with it? Just too beaten up and going on the fritz?

     

    th3Digit said:

    get Windows pro so you can increase your RAM if you want to

    I am stuck at 16GB as only have home premium too

    I thought Home Premium can go a LOT higher than 16

    Anyway, I'm still not quite settled in with Windows 10. I think that I've turned off much of what makes it so good, which is why I don't like it that much - stuff that relies on constant send/return with the internet, which was driving me crazy when I first got it.

    So I still love Windows 7 64 bit. I never had a drive larger than 1.5TB... so there's an issue with 7 going over 2GB hard drive?

    Anyway... I hope the new machine helps your woes disappear ;)

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    wgdjohn said:
    head wax said:
    @WGDJohn - be interested to see your Vector style renders :)

    I'm thinking that the object color it chooses could be changed in PSP or Gimp etc... then add some effects there or import back into Carrara as background or even applied to a plane and rendered again... ohhh the possibilities.

    yes! too many and life is short:)

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    @Stezza, great minds think alike :) I've had mine since 2012 I think. I buy from some cheap guys in chatswood - they make them cheaper than the local people in Newie can buy the parts for - but they clag out after a while I notice. Not sure what's going on with this one - at one time  I lost my keyboard (wi fi) though the mouse attached to it works fine, and lost a few usb ports and one hard drive -  possible the connection to the hard drive is clagged and the drive is okay...... it tries to start but doesnt quite get there so maybe it's not gettng enough power...

    @Wendy thanks for that tip. I remember when 8mb coast me 800 hundred dollars..

    @Dart - thanks for the response  :) ah the win7 and the 2 terabyte limit was only related to an external hardrives trying to make a mirror image of the c - drive.

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,063

    same.. except I bought from a firm in Victoria...

    I'd definately go Pro with windows

    and I'd double the RAM to 32gig

    16gig is so 2012 devil

  • Steve KSteve K Posts: 3,235

    Three years ago I had a longtime local shop custom build a machine that would be fast and durable.  It was not cheap, i.e. it was more than Dell, Fry's, etc., but he said I should not turn it off, the components were very durable.  I don't know enough to question it, but I have confidence in him:

    i7 4770K 3.5, 16GB RAM, 2x2TB Western Digital hard drives (two to allow use of Casper bootable backup), nVidia 660GTX, Win7HP 64 bit (my one spec - he had no problem), GigaByte motherboard, CoolMaster Mid Tower (lots of fans & vents).  He wanted to put in a SSD but I said boot time is not a big deal for me.

    I think it does great for Carrara animation renders - the main purpose - but I do turn it off due to fast developing thunderstorms here in Houston.  Even thought it's plugged into a good APC surge arrestor.  I've recently talked to the same shop about another one with a faster CPU (but still Win7) ... and BTW, does Carrara use the GPU for rendering?  I recall something ...

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,063

    I don't like gigabyte boards so your change to ASUS is good yes

    always had some sort of trouble with them since 1999

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    Steve K said:

    ... and BTW, does Carrara use the GPU for rendering?  I recall something ...

    Only if you'r using a plugin for an external render engine that uses it. Carrara uses cpu threads

    Your particular i7 is a Quad core which uses HyperThreading to double that to 8 threads, giving you eight buckets for rendering. Nice!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    My next build is forecasting the use of the new AMD Ryzen 7 8-core which hyperthreads to 16 threads. 

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,063

    @headwax also with WinX you don't get media centre.. it was killed off so if you watch DVDs you need an alternative like Kodi

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

     

    Stezza said:

    same.. except I bought from a firm in Victoria...

    I'd definately go Pro with windows

    and I'd double the RAM to 32gig

    16gig is so 2012 devil

    thanks @Stezza, :) you're talking to a guy who is still living in 1996 ...

    @Steve K thanks for that input. I'm happy with my machine for Carrara - especially since I have veered away from 'realistic' work and trying more post work.

    There's a program called Rebelle which is a watercolour sim which is horribly slooooooow, but they are offering the use of GPU with their latest iteration.

    @Dart these guys are offering only one Ryzen in their multimedia range - a AMD Ryzen 1700X 8C/16T CPU OC. Not sure why.

     

     

  • StezzaStezza Posts: 8,063

    @headwax you get Fresh Paint with WinX

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited April 2017

    actually it looks like it does a good job on textures - I have a win 10 Surface Book pro I bought for out door sketching and stuff and it has it on it - must have a play :)

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    @head wax, it was very interesting to learn about your Genesis file weight. My scene «Wired to the music» with one G2 girl with her clothes and props, a bunch of city buildings and the textures «all included» weights around 250 Mb.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    head wax said:

     

     

    Vyusur said:

    @head wax, it was very interesting to learn about your Genesis file weight. My scene «Wired to the music» with one G2 girl with her clothes and props, a bunch of city buildings and the textures «all included» weights around 250 Mb.

    hmm, thanks for that feed back

    maybe there are too many morphs in my genesis 1 ?

    I've only just started with Genesis (three weeks?) and wasnt smart enough to save out a plain jane one before I downloaded a bunch of stuff via DIM.

    I've noticed that some Genesis clothes arent really made with low poly's in mind. Eg I loaded up some arm braces today and my system slowed down to jelly until I figured out what was causing it. Shouldn't get past Daz' testing I would have thought.

    - but my Captain Hook when I saved him was >4 gig ! (I lost the file as had an end of file error)

    I'll check what a Genesis without clothes comes up as and post it. Thanks for the heads up on your file size.

    I normally would do scenes with about 4 K4's and one or two (sometimes 8 M4's ) I never have trouble with them.

     

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Nice looking system. I have a 960GB SSD as my main storage. There's no such thing as too much storage, and it's worth the extra in not looking over my shoulder all the time worrying if the C drive is full.

    I also recommend Corsair's Hydro coolers. Small footprint, sealed system, very efficient. I have the H100iv2. Love it. Keeps the cpu cool and the room warm!

    Also, Win 10 Pro, as others have said. For me, extra ram support (32GB in my box) and Remote Desktop from my iMac (I only have a crappy old PC monitor!) are the prime movers, but other things like more control over Windows Update are useful.

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Oh, and I have 2x16 GB RAM sticks, so I don't have to bin them if I want to move up to 64GB!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    TangoAlpha said:

    Nice looking system. I have a 960GB SSD as my main storage. There's no such thing as too much storage, and it's worth the extra in not looking over my shoulder all the time worrying if the C drive is full.

    I also recommend Corsair's Hydro coolers. Small footprint, sealed system, very efficient. I have the H100iv2. Love it. Keeps the cpu cool and the room warm!

    Also, Win 10 Pro, as others have said. For me, extra ram support (32GB in my box) and Remote Desktop from my iMac (I only have a crappy old PC monitor!) are the prime movers, but other things like more control over Windows Update are useful.

    hey thanks for that too Tim, well  960GB SSD ! Wow. I didn't even realise they made them that big...

    Could be a little out of my price range after mty wife sees the credit card bill after march madness.......

    My present one is 120 gig so I only have a few things on it Carrara - Photoshop etc.

    thanks for the vote for Win 10 pro and the 32 gig ram

     

  • TangoAlphaTangoAlpha Posts: 4,584

    Yeah, I now notice SSDs have almost doubled in price since I bought mine a year ago. sad - I paid £150 for a Sandisk Ultra II 960, in the store today it's £288.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    My storage on my i5 win system is C – 1 T and D – 2 T, Win 10 Pro, only 8GB ram. But GeForce GTX 960 8 GB makes it possible to render something decent for a reasonable time.

    I don't have remote control on my mac to my win. Sometimes ago I tried to set up remote access, but without any success.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited April 2017

    Thanks for reminding me all...  I've got to get more external storage and look into what kind of internal I can get... only have one drive now which is getting a bit filled up on C partition... G partition has plenty of room left.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,169

    Here is an NPR image I did for a recent challenge. 

    Don Coyote, the Man of Laredo - dueling windmills

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    Everyone, thanks for all the advice on the computer :) !

    @Diomede, I love your characters, especially this fellow !

    Here's a bit of a wrangle I did today combining a few renders.

     

     

     

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    head wax said:

    @Diomede, I love your characters, especially this fellow !

    Ditto! yes

     

    head wax said:

    Here's a bit of a wrangle I did today combining a few renders.

     

    Fantastic! But you already know I'm a fan of your art ;)

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    head wax said:
    Here's a bit of a wrangle I did today combining a few renders.

     

    Wow!  Impressive as always.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    Thanks Dart and wgdjohn :) Getting there gradually. I hope.

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,169

    Yes, I can't say it often enough.  I love how you use Carrara to integrate it in your more general computer generated imagery.  Masterful.  I would also like to have my images look less like photographs and more like illustrations.  But I am only just beginning to figure out the render passes.  So much to learn in so many different categories!  This thread in particular has inspired so much sharing by the wider community. With so much to inspect, a few concepts occasionally penetrate my skull.  

     

     

    head wax said:

    Thanks Dart and wgdjohn :) Getting there gradually. I hope.

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited May 2017

    thanks Diomede :)

    It's very interesting to think about this stuff.  As an acrylic  painter  I look at CG work (and photos)  and ask 'what is the difference' between a painting and a render.

    When a painter paints ....when he looks at the highlights of his subject - his pupils contract etc and he sees the details in the highlights.

    His pupils dilate when he looks in the shadows. So he sees the detyails in the shadows ...

    The result overall is often a restricted tonal range.

    As far as colour in painting - I work with say 6 colours plus white. Warm red cool red, warm blue cool bluew warm yellow cool yellow.

    Of course you can mix a million colours with this - but I don't of course. So a painter has a restricted palette.

    Also my hand shakes when I do a straight line... :)

    When I look at a cg work that is 'photorealistic' I see every colour that evere existed, and a complete tonal range.

    I see no atmospheric perspective in most works... I don't see any reflected colours (mostly) 

    And usually every line is straight and every edge is perfect :) 

    So I think it's just a matter of restricting Palette, restricting tonal range , and making everything bent :) And doing at least one render without shadows.

    The other important thing is colour modulation within an area  

    Topaz Simplify and Topaz Impression are really good tools - just use a little here and a little there :)

    The Guy who wrote Dinotopia has a great book on painting things that don't exist and faking it (chap called James Gurney) it's really relevant for us I think because when you look at it honestely - it's all about faking it!

    Top two books on this page http://jamesgurney.com/site/books

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • Bunyip02Bunyip02 Posts: 8,615
    head wax said:

    thanks Diomede :)

    It's very interesting to think about this stuff.  As an acrylic  painter  I look at CG work (and photos)  and ask 'what is the difference' between a painting and a render.

    When a painter paints ....when he looks at the highlights of his subject - his pupils contract etc and he sees the details in the highlights.

    His pupils dilate when he looks in the shadows. So he sees the detyails in the shadows ...

    The result overall is often a restricted tonal range.

    As far as colour in painting - I work with say 6 colours plus white. Warm red cool red, warm blue cool bluew warm yellow cool yellow.

    Of course you can mix a million colours with this - but I don't of course. So a painter has a restricted palette.

    Also my hand shakes when I do a straight line... :)

    When I look at a cg work that is 'photorealistic' I see every colour that evere existed, and a complete tonal range.

    I see no atmospheric perspective in most works... I don't see any reflected colours (mostly) 

    And usually every line is straight and every edge is perfect :) 

    So I think it's just a matter of restricting Palette, restricting tonal range , and making everything bent :) And doing at least one render without shadows.

    The other important thing is colour modulation within an area  

    Topaz Simplify and Topaz Impression are really good tools - just use a little here and a little there :)

    The Guy who wrote Dinotopia has a great book on painting things that don't exist and faking it (chap called James Gurney) it's really relevant for us I think because when you look at it honestely - it's all about faking it!

    Top two books on this page http://jamesgurney.com/site/books

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Headwax, thoroughly enjoying your pirates/conquistadors series. Will have to add those books to my wishlist as well.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited May 2017

    Thanks Bunyip02 :):):):)  Here's his blog it's worth a gander ! http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com.au/

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • cdordonicdordoni Posts: 583
    edited May 2017
    head wax said:

    It's very interesting to think about this stuff.  As an acrylic  painter  I look at CG work (and photos)  and ask 'what is the difference' between a painting and a render.

    When a painter paints ....when he looks at the highlights of his subject - his pupils contract etc and he sees the details in the highlights.

    His pupils dilate when he looks in the shadows. So he sees the detyails in the shadows ...

    The result overall is often a restricted tonal range.

     

    With photographic images, there is tone mapping, and it produces images more in line with how we actually see things. I think to use this with renderings it would complicate things though as it would require rendering out several exposures. I believe it can also work with high bit depth or HDR images. So perhaps one rendered image in EXR or similar format (LuxRender or other non native renderer is needed) might work, though I have not tried it myself.

    EDIT - Headwax, I just remembered it was you who mentioned using the PhotoEngine application (ReLight).

    If you are using high bit depth or HDR images, are you processing them from multiple renders (exposures)?

     

    Post edited by cdordoni on
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