Saving Poses

barrieMbarrieM Posts: 292
edited January 2018 in Carrara Discussion

Animation tutorials show keyframes being made by double clicking on various preset poses. I tried to make some preset poses by dragging V4 into a browser tab. Double clicking the new V4 preset pose replaced the existing v4 pose but changed the view and the lighting, presumably because I didn't drag the entire scene into the browser tab. Couldn't find info on line so will someone please tell me how to save preset poses that work like the bundled preset poses. Thanks

Post edited by barrieM on

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    The closest thing Carrara has to that is an NLA clip or NLA master pose. So that's what the "Clips" tab will be for.

    Master poses will also pick up morph dial data - so just be aware of that. NLA clips only store what has been changed over time in an animation.In all cases, we can open the hierarchy during the saving process and deselect what we don't want the clip to record.

    Select the Figure, like in V4's case select Victoria 4, and in the NLA tab, chose Make NLA Clip or Make Master Pose.

    When clips are made they will reside in your Clips try om the bottom right of the interface. The only way to get clips onto the timeline is from that clips tray - so when we store them to the browser, we cannot just drag them onto the character, we drag them to that clips tray first, then onto the NLA Track of the figure.

    We can add additional NLA tracks to any figure by right-click on a track and chose to add a new track.

    I almost always use at least two tracks. One for a main motion clip and another for suibtle nuance clips I make, like blinking.

    Mimic Pro for Carrara uses NLA clips to create lip sync - awesome!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    If you really want to make double-clickable style PZ2 Poser format poses, you'll need Fenric's plugin for that. I came to Carrara from Poser so I felt that I needed that right from the start, and I love it. But once I got more experience at my work, I find that I end up using NLA clips more, but I'm really grateful to own this:

    BVH/PZ2 Exporter for Carrara - If this didn't exist, neither would my Swordworks for M4 or AnimationKit for Mil Dragon 2, since I made the animations in Carrara and used this tool to get them into PZ2 files, and then bringing those into DS to create the aniBlocks - which is a fine workflow. Very useful tool, it doesn't work for Triax rigging. But for recording any animations for any Poser-format models, this thing is incredibly powerful! 

    • Exports Static Poser format Pose File (PZ2)
    • Exports Animated Poser format Pose File (PZ2)
    • Exports Poser compatible BioVision Animation File (BVH)
    • Configurable Operation
      • Choose whether to include or exclude:
        • Overall Motion (global translation)
        • Joint Rotation
        • Morph Dial Settings
        • Joint Scaling (independent X, Y, and Z parameters)
      • Configure start and end frame range for animated poses

    I also love using the rest of his plugins. Poser helper can reverse poses, copy data from left to right, all sorts of powerful things. I use that to help make my own NLA clips too. I'm always using Poser Helper. For example, to create a new quick default pose for a character for test renders to get the out of that T pose, I pose the right should, forearm and hand, the the right thigh and foot, the use Pose Helper to copy right to left. Even if I want to remove the symmetry of that right away, which I often do, it gets me there so much more quickly.

    Well, heres my write-up on Fenric's plugins:

     Fenric's Tools ​​
    A brief overview of Fenric's amazing Carrara plugins

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    Some more fun stuff:

    ► AniMating in Carrara

    Your Carrara Browser
    Making great stuff isn't as cool if you can't remember where you put it. Let's get some good habits going right from the start

    Daz Install Manager - Installing Custom Poser Runtimes
    Basic walkthrough of designing your own custom runtime structure

    Navigating in Carrara
    some good tips on how to get around the work space, go to where you want to be at specific times, and how to send stuff to specific locations within your scene

    ► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
    Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
    beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!

     

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    It's probably easiest to make "premade" poses in programs which are built for that,. like Poser and DS ,.. any poses you create in those programs will work in Carrara

    As DArt mentioned, you can create NLA poses and clips of animation, and save those to the carrara browser.

    When you drag a Model into the browser,. Carrara saves that "model"

    If you're working in a scene and you want to save some poses,. then apply those to a figure in that scene,.

    You can use "puppetteer" to click and save a Pose Dot,. which can also be clicked to apply that pose to a figure.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570

    I keep forgeting about puppeteer!

    Yeah... for V4 and earlier generations, I used to love using Poser for creating walk cycle and other animated (or still) pose files. Their poser-save functions are (at least in my old Poser 7) are very intuitive toward what gets saved, whether it's an animation or still, what parts to include, etc.,

    3DAGE, have you ever tried Fenric's BVH/PZ2 exporter? It's amazing! 

  • barrieMbarrieM Posts: 292

    I think the NLA approach seems to be the ideal solution for my small project. I was using puppeteer and changing the figure at each dot. After a few dots I screwed up the figure and had to start again..... several times, so I was trying to save the pose at each dot. 

    Dartenbeck, you either have 8 arms or a bunch of Dartenbeck clones. How else can anyone be so prolific with your art, documentation and encouragement. Thanks for that and thanks for being here, there and everywhere. You too 3DAGE, your tips and comments are also much appreciated.

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    Yes ,. It was my request to fenric :)

    I asked him to make it because it's something that i felt should have been built into Carrara,. Carrara is the only program i know which can Import BVH, but not export BVH !

    It's probably my most frequently used plugin,. either to take animations from Carrara into Poser,. or  just static poses.

    :)

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    barrieM said:

    Dartanbeck, you either have 8 arms or a bunch of Dartanbeck clones. How else can anyone be so prolific with your art, documentation and encouragement. Thanks for that and thanks for being here, there and everywhere. You too 3DAGE, your tips and comments are also much appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Actually, I spent a loooong time building this thing:

    ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄

    I know it failry well, even though there's a lot of stuff I need to update. But it's really handy for grabbing large chunks of information that's already been discussed - which is nice, especially since searching for stuff in the forum is a disaster at best, and on the other hand, sometimes we just don't know what to actually search for!

    It wasn't that long ago when I was full of questions - even questions I didn't realize that I had. 3DAGE is one of those kind and patient (and immensely knowledgeable!) folks who always seemed to be there, helping me along.

    Daz got new forums and they weren't working that well. I really never go to forums except this one - so I just stayed away to wait for it to get finished. I was busy working hard, manual labor overtime then so not going on the internet was really easy for me - but I missed it.

    A seemingly Dark time arose in the forum. Negativity and down-beat talk galore. I came back to see if the forums were working and I noticed that questions about Carrara were being met with sledge hammers and closed doors. Doom. I left again.

    One day a friend sent me an email about a particular thread on the forum. It was Wendy♥♥♥Cats! She had my avatar picture in the opening post asking: Has anyone seen this guy? We need him to come back!

    I haven't left (on my own accord) since! LOL

    I went in earnest to those questions and painted them with the optimism Carrara deserves. I started using quotes from 3DAGE, Tim Payne, and many others. Head Wax and Roygee were there too.... it didn't take a whole lot to get the light to return.

    Some questions were really well answered by just posting a link to one of Cripeman's many video tutorials. One day I decided to contact him and ask if he'd mind if I built a sort of a Table of Contents for his videos. I mean... it's a free internet but I didn't want to do all of that only to find out later that he didn't like my doing that.

    He was awesome. He not only gave me permission, we kinda had a great relationship after that. But it was the beginning thoughts of how to make his video index that born the ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄ and I just kept going with it. It was a place I could be optimistic and type about stuff I might know about - stuff that I knew I didn't know before coming to the old forums that were now gone.

    One of the first Table of Contents entries, besides some other stuff I added to make it more of a Table of Contents, was 

    ► Cripeman's Carrara Video Tutorials Index

    Carrara Community's very own Super Hero takes plenty of time from his busy life to
    explore many exciting features of this amazing 3d content manipulation, modeling and animation suite

    Eventually I satarted noticing that as the pages of thread headers would change, and questions would start repeating themselve as the original ones would get lost a few pages down, I started making the ► Forum Help Links index. It's been a long time since I've updated that or added new things that should really be in there, but it's amazing how often I still go there to grab links to threads that might have answers sought. Even better, some folks involved in those threads might be following them, so if someone needs more answers on the subject, these followers of the thread will get an email. It was a sound plan and works prett well. Time has passed and the world of Carrara has gotten bigger, so I need to go hunting for more links to categorize in there. I took a LOT of time though!

    Jay Nola loved what I was doing and asked if he could contribute, and made this lovely thing:

    ► Carrara Plugins FAQ & Information - By Jay_NOLA
    Jay compilled and organized a great measure of info regarding Plugins specific to our
    beloved Carrara. FAQ, Information and Links to help you determine which are right for you. Thank You Jay_NOLA!

    The Fractal Dimmensia (moved on to do other stuff. I miss him. Good friend) made this awesome thing:

    ► Comprehensive List of Video Tutorials on Carrara - by FractalDemensia
    The purpose of this thread is to collect, consolidate, and make available a comprehensive list of all video tutorials available on Carrara.

    Being a Carrara Cafe and GKDantas fan, I found that it suffered from not having his video tutorials in there, but that was going to require a bunch more time. But I did it!

    ► GK Dantas' Video Manual Index
    Carrara Cafe's Die-Hard Instructor - now with an easy-to-use index of links

    It was a lot of fun putting stuff in there and eventually starting new threads for it. I love helping folks - especially when it comes to Carrara. I love using Carrara. It's my #1 favorite reason to own a computer!

    The forums got yet another new facelift which, at the time, completely destroyed the ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄. I was really heartbroken - defeated. None of the links worked, the threads no longer open at page 1 thread 1... so that's why I keep copying the Table of Contents and pasting it into the last comment of the thread! Don't ever take that as a nuissance on me though... I don't mind at all and welcome folks to post in there if they want to.

    Chohole was a true pal. She got one of the web administrators involved to try and offer advice and encouragement... with some deep breaths and a new-found stroke of passion, I combed through the think page by page and manually corrected every link I could think of. Once in a while I would fing another broken link and would try and fix it as soon as I could. Since then Daz3d started culling a bunch of us artists who didn't have the time to continously make new stuff or, in PhilW's case, the company that sold his tutorials through Daz3d was bought out - so a lot of those links to products just don't work anymore and I haven't had the time or ambition to fix them yet.

    So during that whole time of woe, when the manual Table of Contents was pretty much broken, I decided to start a new thing in case I couldn't get it fixed:

    ► Learning CARRARA and need some help?

    It has links to some really cool Carrara magazine downloads, a bunch of videos and articles, links to older "Post Your Renders" threads and images... it helped inspire me again. Dimension Theory sadly made some of the cool tutorial videos in there private or somesuch, so there's always something broken! Argh!!! But it's a lot of fun. Now that thread is just another entry in the Table of Contents at the Carrara Iformation Manual! LOL

    Diomede started his truly awesome thread, and I made a link to it in the manual under its original title:

    ► First Steps - Setting up a sample scene in Carrara with plant, terrain, sky and hair
    Diomede's wonderful "Starter Thread" for those new to Carrara! "Where do we go now, what do we do next?"  Find answers here!

    But I suppose I could (should?) just let you explore yourself... :)   Just because I love the thing, I'll leave this by also putting in the Carrara 8 Promo Reel. I love it!!!

    This message has been brought to you by  CARRARATORS 


    A community Project webspace for Carrara Animators!!!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    3DAGE said:

    Yes ,. It was my request to fenric :)

    I asked him to make it because it's something that i felt should have been built into Carrara,. Carrara is the only program i know which can Import BVH, but not export BVH !

    It's probably my most frequently used plugin,. either to take animations from Carrara into Poser,. or  just static poses.

    :)

    Wow! Thanks for that! I love it!

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