why can't Carrara import the huge meshes DAZ studio can
WendyLuvsCatz
Posts: 38,228
I have found Carrara will choke on anything too complex if it can load it at all
yet DAZ studio can easily load 15 million poly Incendia fractal meshes
I have wondered what causes this limitation and if there is some way I can get around it
other than chopping said fractals up into little bits in DAZ studio with the geometry editor ( yes I can actually do that too but not ideal)
Comments
I often wonder that as well...
I have read somewhere over the years ( either in this forum or the old one ) that the Carrara OBJ importer is to blame...
other than that I have no idea...
the fractal shown near the end of this video for example will load in DS
and Octane render standalone which is where I rendered it as OrDS 2 does not do projection mapping correctly animated unlike our lovely OR4C
Absolutely no way on earth I can get it into Carrara
actually even Zbrush cannot zremesh it or anything either though it does at least load it, DS seems to cope better with huge meshes than most my other software
mmm interesting maybe I must try another format then
Saving and re-opening very large files can also be a hassle.
well no idea how long it took, I was asleep, but FBX from Zbrush and .car of the obj from Hexagon both worked!
Hexagon beta 64 bit loadedthe obj easily and exported it as a .car file so is possibly the best route of the two.
it saves compressed a quite reasonable 61MB
Thanks for the idea of Hexagon to Carrara Wendy.
I was importing some freebie obj files, but they kept coming in as one object which is a PITA for applying shaders. So I opened one of the obj's in Hexagon where it provided the full list of component parts, then exported from Hexagon to Carrara. Opened the new Carrara file and it has the full list of component parts, which will make it a breeze to apply shaders !!!!!
you know I never relies that. I guess this might be one of the reasons I have a hard time with Carrara Wendy. tend to build huge sets in Daz Studio. I create all my story boards and test scenes before i start my animation and after animating with daz so long i found it rather hard to fits the same scene content in carrara that fits easily in daz . Then if you do manange to get the content into carrara then you need to reduce textures and manage ploy size to speed up render times. then I start getting lost and and quickly loose interested with working with cararra & go back to daz
Ivy, whatever you are doing, it works. Keep on keeping on.
I have the opposite problem. I can build huge environments in Carrara with figures, plants, buildings, and trees cluttering the place up and I have no problem. I try the same thing in Studio and everything grinds to a halt and test renders become unbearably long. I'm pretty sure it is a matter of being comfortable with the program's preview modes, render settings, and that sort of thing. I am getting better in Studio but it is slow going for me.
Wendy, for the fractal, do you know the formula? Dare I suggest Carrara's formula modeler? The scene resource hit would become almost nothing for saving and managing, but render times increase.
Hi Diomede
One of the reasons I got carrara was for the great physics which are awesome. But when you start loading mountians for a volcano ,smoke clouds and atmosphere panes, it takes me 2 days to render one frame with just one light...lol and that is like at 600 x 340 dpi its pretty discouraging. when for me in studio I can render scenes at 3080 x 2040 dpi rendering a frame in about 45 seconds using UE2. or IBL . But like I said I think a lot of it has to do with I've been working with daz so long its really hard to get use to other software requirements But I am still plugging away ..
Here is one of my entries for the most recent Carrara challenge. Click to see full size. Volcano, smoke, lava flows, realistic sea, forests on the slopes, steam rising from the lava hitting the sea. I wouldn't even know how to begin trying to do this in Studio. Key word is "I" meaning that I would not know how to do it in Studio, not that it can't be done. Have learning ultrascatter on my list but hear there is a new super ultrascatter update on the way. I'm sure I will get better at Studio when I learn those things. But whatever tool gets the job done. As I said, you are doing great with Studio. I'm slowly learning that software as well.
That looks great did you animate that scene?
It is a still image. If I was going to animate it, the elements that would need to be dealt with are the sea, the steam, the lava flows, and the smoke. The sea is just a terrain that is replicated in the "seamless" mode. It would be relatively straightforward to animate the sea with an object modifier, there is even a wave preset. The steam is made up of volumetric clouds. I could keyframe them and move them around, but I think it might be just as effective to change the cloud settings through the timeline (make them increase and decrease opacity/density or maybe change the randomization seed). The smoke was made with Carrara's dynamic hair and converted with a free plugin. This was done to fulfill a requirement of the challenge. Without that requirement, it would probably be better to do the smoke with a particle emitter and some blur.
The lava flows are a duplicate of the underlying terrain with some adjustments. Couple of options. Could apply wave modifiers. Another option would be to try Alvin's free FLUIDOS plugin. I believe he is working on a version of FLUIDOS for Studio. If so, you are going to love it!
Anyway, I'm not trying to convert you to Carrara. You have a workflow that seems to work very well for you. Just reporting that managing scene resources and render times is more difficult for me in Studio than for me in Carrara. I'm sure it is because I am so familiar with Carrara.
Thank you Wendy! This is awesome to know.
Inspired by Diomede's Volcano:
Maybe Chickenzilla home?
is hexagon beta a freeb?
n/m
found it but no standalone installer. is install manager only
Pretty awesome, Alberto!
this volcano is really amazing! I especially like the little details like the splash in the ocean near the end. Chickenzilla would be proud to call the island home, but also quite afraid of the volcano.
beautiful work
Does anyone have a large freebie obj file to test the Hexagon method?
Thinking about writing a short CarraraCafe news article, since forum tips here get lost easily.
I believe you can extract the DIM installer into a standalone folder, and run the beta version from there.
can't check now, but I don't think there was much/any registry/post-install stuff during the installation.
hope that's the case...,
--ms
ty!