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This forum, along with Carrara Cafe, Carrarators and others, is a fine testamnet to how enjoyed and celebrated Carrara really is!
A community Project webspace for Carrara Animators!!!
I know I'm a bit off-topic here, but just perusing through the 3dXtract zines, I love these things! C3DE too!
3dXtract has some amazing tutorials, articles, interviews, reviews, software insights, etc., from the likes of our very own mmoir (Mike Moir), Phillip Staiger (now with Project Dogwaffle), Brian Hinton, Jack Whitney, Carl Desmond (Editor), Eric W from DCG and many more.
C3DE is abound with beautiful imagery, tutorials, news, interviews, etc., all about our very favorite software on the planet - Carrara!
I was just glancing through during periods of waiting for files to finish saving so that I could Batch Queue the animations to render their beauty-passes, and now realize that I need to pack these magazines up in a way that I can bring them with me everywhere. Mike Moir has a wonderful tutorial on creating landscapes - not using the terrain modeler, but modeling them from scratch in a very simple, organic way - even using magnets to help shape the topography. That same issue features Jack Whitney as the featured artist, whom does a really nice run-down on creating his art in Carrara, with the help of other software. And later in that same issue, Eric W does a really cool tutorial on using his Ground Control plugin for Carrara, Brian Hinton and Carl Desmond are coming up next.
Really makes me wish that Daz3d was as passionate about Carrara as the rest of us - and like these folks were back then. They'd likely still be writing this wonderful stuff!
Jet-Bird and crew, at Carrara Cafe, are always ready to report something cool about Carrara - and they're really on top of it.
Perhaps in this new stage in my life, I can write some good, meaningful articles for their pages. It would be cool to get Carrara seen amongst the webway again - in a popular kind of way. I know... I dream.
A lot of truth in that.
An even greater truth - in my opinion - is that many people are more focused on newer tools rather than becoming better artists. The seduction of the upgrade treadmill. You can't buy artistic skill. While newer software may be useful, a great artist is still great without the need for the newest effect.
I wish that Daz would add some stuff to Carrara, but it is not a deal-breaker. Carrara - as a primary 3D platform - still fits my needs, and likely will for years to come. Then again, I consider myself to be an amateur. So, YMMV.
It's a deep program that relatively few have explored in full, much less mastered. Maybe one day my artistic skills will be worthy of it!
Ah, UB! It is a “natural” thing for most of the the men, to use the best tool rather than to do the best work.
This matter calls in question “why do we connect each day to the Carrara forum?
For my part, I see that like a community of friends…
To do the best work, a good tool is needed, but the best tool is the talent and the complicity of people who have same passion as yourself!
Thanks, DUDU!
Hope to see you entering the current Challenge (not-so-subtle arm-twist).
Seriously, the realism (and classic illustrative style) is getting thick in there...
Daz has noticed I haven’t bought any G8 stuff and are now offering me $150 off some V8 stuff....
aint gonna work Daz as it ain’t gonna work in Carrara!
Agreed. I'm impressed with the fine work going into other tools, but none of that brings them any closer to me - for Carrara already has the tools I want/need...
...well, except for a healthy dose of transferable talent. The UI does help immensely in that regard, but we still have to manually take that bull by the horns on our own accord! This forum is a great place to help find that zen. Even subjects completely unrelated to what we might be looking for can provide sparks of inspiration that pushes us ever forward! This is such a great family! I love you all! :)
Same here. I was almost pulled in... when Carrara 9 was still a glimmer. Now I won't procede forth (shopping) without Carrara compatibility.
...and I used to always spend. Always. They've been toiling away at changing my shopping habits simply by dropping the idea of giving further news of Carrara/duf development.
Wow. Along those same lines of thought:
I was just checking my animation render and, while there, I read Brian Hinton's tutorial for making stormy ocean waves. Now this was Carrara Studio 3, so they didn't have a lot of the helpful additions that Carrara has been blessed with since then, and it's still apparent how powerful this incredible software is for allowing us to get done whatever sort of imagery we wish for!
This tutorial was not only for waves, a stormy sky and lightning, but animated as well!
Awesome read! Not just for making a Stormy Ocean animation, but simply in learning inspiring ways to use Carrara as well.
By the time I started using Carrara, Carrara 8.0 was almost official. So I consider myself pretty spoiled when it comes to using Carrara. By that time I had 64 bit power, an Ocean Primitive (Pro version), Realistic Sky, volumetric Clouds.... lots of things that weren't available (as a simple Insert item) in some of those earlier versions. But by reading these tutorials, I see how they worked through using what they had to work with to get the job done, just as we do now, with other software choices on their full-blown, constant development cycles.
With all of the presets in the browser and such a complete list of ready-to-go items in the Insert list, it can be easy to fall into a trap of Always going to these things to solve things related to what those things do. But it can be very healthy to also remember that: This is Carrara! And in Carrara, anything is possible in so many different ways.
How refreshing. Next time I go back in to check on my renders, I'll read Carl's article regarding the Bulb light!
There are a few things I wish they'd add which really pushes me to other apps.
Like uv unwrapping making twisted versions of clean symmetrical models. Just... no.
Or limited 3d paint tools.
Ah well.
They are aware that there is a dedicated user base of Carrara users and they are aware that those users buy products. But I don't think they have any developers on staff any more who are familiar with Carrara and I think they have decided that the expense of developing Carrara any further would not be a sound investment for the return they would likely make. We have made representations to make them change their minds but Carrara has not been updated for years now.
So Carrara is what it is and I doubt that will now change. Having said that it is still an excellent and very capable program, and there are several very clever people who have made more recent figures compatible with Carrara (Mistara), who have integrated Octane Render with Carrara (Sighman), who have provided an excellent cloth simulation system (Philemo and VWD), etc and so through plugins, Carrara has continued to develop despite the lack of progress from its owners.
I may be wrong of course - I HOPE I am wrong! But I now have no confidence in ever seeing a Carrara 9. But that does not mean that Carrara is dead.
At this point, what can Daz even bring to the table? They have to put something 'in the box' in order to sell Carrara 9, but meanwhile very innovative plugin makers have solved nearly every 'hole' that Carrara 8.5 didn't already do. They can't make dynamic cloth a big selling point, since VWD already solved that. The LightX plugin brings in distance-squared lighting. There's already plugins for Octane and Lux, so not much room there for Daz to boast of bringing in unbiased rendering engines, since they are already here and available. They could make it a selling point that Carrara 9 supports the latest Genesis figures... except Mistara already beat them to the punch on that (and of course it ought to be a given that a Daz-owned software application can support the main Das figures anyway). They can't even boast of fixing the annoying bone visibility thing with Genesis, because Fenric's plugin already solved that too. And now Alberto is working on a plugin to bring an awesome fluid sim into Carrara that looks amazing.
Even if Daz was driven to spend the time and expense to make Carrara 9, what features could they actually bring to it that would entice us to buy the upgrade? I mean this as an honest question, because there's probably lots of things I'm forgetting, but in general there just don't seem to me to be that many frontiers remaining to be conquered.
I think that DAZ3D wanted to let die Carrara (like Hexagon and Bryce), but it is without taking in account the enormous potential which is at the base of Carrara and especially, the new generation of developers of plugins which make useless a new version of Carrara.
Perhaps that it will be the only program which evolves without changing number of version…
C4D is always at the top thanks to these external developers, the basic program is, not only not-convivial, but very basic for this time.
Bravo and thank you to all developers of plugins ancient, present and to come, thanks to them, we have a program which enables us to compete with others having a cost extremely more high!
If they added a little oomph to the 3d painting and modeling tools, and fixed a few things with uv unwrapping, they could give stuff like 3d coat a run for its money.
DAZ or Daz?
somethin fishie or sushi
carrara 9 pro
just adding 3D to carrara would be a great upgrade
I am already using carrara for 3d scanning and 3D printing and on my CNC machine
adding a 3D camera could be a great upgrade to
DAZ need to understand this program rocks carrara works great with the new tec that is coming out
carrara put the map back on these 2 scans
Sweet post!
I met a fellow in a restaurant whom uses Carrara at his work for CNC and other architectural services too.
I agree. I certainly hope that Daz3d realizes the potential behind keeping Carrara current at the very least. But there's so much more that they could do with it! I was just reading an article from the old 3dXtract e-zine, where they interviewed members of Eovia back when Carrara 3 was the new thing on the market. They spoke about how reading the technical reports of the 3d industry helped guide them toward developing Carrara to meet the needs of the Pros and Hobbyists alike. I know that Daz3d also reads these reports, and I'm sure that much of it would fit very nicely into further Carrara development - making a new version very attractive on the market.
If a bridge to and/or from Daz Studio just doesn't work out, and that's what's holding them away from further updates/upgrades - or even compatibility with their latest figure technology, I certainly wish they would rethink all of that. Yes... compatibility with the latest figures makes sense from the company putting that new tech on the market.
But there is no way that Daz Studio could ever completely fill the hole of Carrara - and likely vice versa. So it would be great if such things wouldn't be a game-stopper for further progress on developing this incredible piece of software!
Wow, canoma... I haven't heard that in eons, lol
Caroma? my toilet cistern ihas that on it I think
yep Wendy, Caroma toilet systems, tap ware and such started in 1941 by a man from South Oz... and still getting updated to this day... unlike other similar sounding software lol
My eyes are all buggy... did I mis-spell something again???
I have mostly stopped using Carrara because it cant import models with vertex normal data. I now use other more modern, and well-supported apps, and have found that being free to flip between them is much more enjoyable and efficient than being tied to Carrara. I have consequently learned a lot more than I would have had I stuck with one app. For solid body models I tend to use Moi3d, for organic things, I use 3d coat, and for a clean low poly mesh, I use Rocket 3f. For assembly of scenes and packing to other formats, I use Simlab composer. Filter Forge works well with 3d Coat PBR textures.
I don't think its as simple as Carrara giving other software a run for its money. I have found that the right tools make life a lot simpler than it would be if I tried to do everything in one app such as Carrara. Ironically I started out trying to make Carrara work with Daz Studio, which due to incompatibilities made me reach out for other apps, and now I can make stuff that works with Daz I hardly ever do.
I haven't even heard of some of those 3D tools, I'm going to have to do some research. I still find Carrara useful for modelling, perhaps as I am so familiar with it, but there are certainly some jobs I would use other tools for.
At least Hexagon is back from the dead and getting some basic but much needed updates by at least one full-time coder.
Looks like they are planning a 64bit version and a new beta has some bug fixes already included:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/215001/hexagon-beta-version-2-5-2-109/p1
Good news!
As focus have moved to Hexagon to be integrated in DS so, well, enough said
What ever happened to the French (or French speaking) creators that came up with Hexagon and took Raydream to Carrara? I can't recall the fellow who developed Bonebender plugin. This is more than 20 years ago but it seems like we have amnesia regarding who developed Carrara into what it is.
There is an old thread on the history of Carrara. Might have some information.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/27130/the-history-of-carrara/p1
In particular, there is this from Antoine Clappier.
Antoine Clappier
President
...and we're still alive!!!