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if you mean fbx rigged figures
yes in the C8.5 beta, iffy in the C8.1 production build
you may get some to work after conversion to an earlier version in Autodesk fbx converter and reducing it to one animation take but most stuff comes in a mangled animated mess.
I do not ofcourse have Max but the fbx converter sample files work in 8.5 as do Unity game engine assets and iClone pipeline exports
retexturing the only issue often but the uv mapping preserved so just a matter of loading textures and tweeking highlight etc in the shader room.
improved fbx import and Genesis are the things I like about the beta.
ik restraints are not imported so you need to go to animation, select the hip, pelvis or top bone in the heirarchy and add ball joint restraints to children for an instant posing fix
hinge joints for knees etc can be created by going to those joints and limiting movement on one axis and locking it on the others.
I found this on YouTube a short while back. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBXra4S2XA
The user says they rigged the Character in 3ds Max but ended up fixing the weights in Carrara 8 Pro.
Thanks for the tips. Anybody know what version of MAX Carrara plays best with?
What would "fixing the weights" mean?
no idea, I do not use Max, would if had the dosh!
just try different years of fbx maybe if one does not work.
export works best with version 6 not 7
maybe they meant weightpainting, cannot think of anything else.
What would "fixing the weights" mean?
I think it would mean adjusting the weight maps for each of the bones. Carrara allows you to simply paint these so that you can optimise how each joint bends as a result of moving a bone.
I think it would mean adjusting the weight maps for each of the bones. Carrara allows you to simply paint these so that you can optimise how each joint bends as a result of moving a bone.
PhilW!
Honor to meet you, I have your tutorials. Looking forward to going through them very soon after I complete the VTC tutorials. :-)
Hi - yes, you will find me hanging around here from time to time! Thanks for your support in getting the training, I hope you find it really useful.
Wonderful!
Also, I have ordered the advanced training as well, hoping that just by getting it, it will motivate me into getting to an expertise level that will actually require it!
:-)
Wonderful!
Also, I have ordered the advanced training as well, hoping that just by getting it, it will motivate me into getting to an expertise level that will actually require it!
:-)
Then I owe you a double thank you!
Which is why I suggested that you learn the basics first. Weight maps are a very basic concept in applying bones and rigging 3D models, and apply across all software. And they are covered in most general books on 3D basics.
Starting off by trying to learn 1,256 different things at the same time is impossible enough, but doing it all backwards makes it super impossible. You're asking lots of different questions across lots of different areas, and like I say it will probably leave you frustrated in the long run. And people tend to throw up their hands and say "this sucks" and walk away after too much banging their head against the wall trying to figure stuff out. But if that's how you want to do it.....
Okay, I'll shut up now. I'm sure I'm just getting everyone angry.
Okay, I'll shut up after this one...
For anyone out there who really is interested in learning the basics, I strongly suggest you look around on amazon or whatever for some basic 3D books. I'll give a somewhat biased recommendation for a book (I know the author, and he's extremely good), although I haven't actually read it. The book is "The Art of 3D Computer Animation and Effects" by Isaac Kerlow. And the cost is only about $40. Yes, it might take you a week or so to read it, but I strongly suggest you read it cover to cover. Twice. And it might save you many, many months (or, more likely, years) of pounding your head against the wall trying to figure out what the basics are.
Though there are other books out there that are excellent and comprehensive introductions. But the point is you DON'T need a university degree, you just need to really read a book or two to get you familiar with the overall process and components. It will make life much easier. But you have to actually READ the book, and spend some time understanding, not just put it on the table and expect it to transfer information automatically while you're sleeping.
BTW, I pretty much guarantee that if you really study one of the good introduction books, you'll probably end up knowing a lot more than many tutorial makers. Present company excepted, of course.
damn, I just KNEW having my two ringbound folders of the 800+ page Carrara manual under my bed was not working!
Nice comparison. Ok, I'm sold. Hex it is.
Just so that you understand, Hexagon is a modeling only application. Carrara is more of a suite. This is important to remember because Hex will let you make a model, but you won't be able to rig it, animate it or render it from within Hex. Aside from having a bridge to DAZ Studio, there's also one for Carrara I believe.
Regarding your question about fire particles, there are many ways to skin a horse. Look for tutorials or videos by Dimension Theory. He's done some very cool things with particles and physics. There are others as well, he just came to the top of my mind.
Carrara also has a fire primitive, and if you have a little patience it can produce some decent results, however (and this is a big however), it doesn't react to particles, physics, etc. It's just there. If you have Carrara or the demo, experiment a little.
Small correction - there is no bridge between Hex and Carrara. You can export from Hex in .car format, which is pretty pointless.
Is it? Actually I've always used it but never really gave it much thought. Doesn't it provide some benefit over .obj or whatever?
OK - maybe "pointless" is a bit harsh - my pipeline is: model in Hex ->UV map in UU3D ->rig in Daz Studio ->texture, animate and render in Carrara. So no benefit for me saving in .car.
There is no real benefit going straight from Hex to Carrara - you need to first export then open Carrara - may as well export to the universal .obj format.
I know that I should know this, but what are the benefits of modelling in Hex over Carrara - on initial inspection, the interfaces and tools look very similar.
Hi PhilW
Scan back a few posts - of course, I'm very biassed.Lol
What is very significant is that the normally very defensive Carrara fans are silent on this - not a word in it's defence.
The tribe has silently spoken!
Thanks Roygee! I'll have to have another look.
Of course it could be that it's the weekend, a Sunday in the US and early-ish depending on your time zone. ;-)
I do know that many Carrara users use multiple tools to get the job done, and many use Hexagon and to a lesser extent D/S and Poser as plugins for Carrara. They all have their uses.
Well, the conversation has been ongoing since Tuesday....
Of course, you are correct - we all use whatever tools are needed to get the job done and use the best of each to supplement the worst of the others.
Just as an example, my latest project involved sculpting in Sculptris, retopo in Blender, finish in Hex, UV map in UU3D, rigging in Daz Studio and finally into Carrara for texturing, animation and render. I really did try very hard for the best part of two days to rig in Carrara, but one small part of the weight-painting just would not work, spoiling the whole thing.
I've only started learning Blender, otherwise I could have done the whole project in Blender - this shows just how far behind Carrara has fallen - it is conceivably possible to do all of that in Carrara, but there are so many aspects that are good, but just not rounded off.
I guess I just assumed that it did the correct scaling for Carrara, and maybe some materials/shading stuff that wouldn't happen in an OBJ export. Heck, if nothing else I'm sure it MUST do a scale conversion for Carrara, unless that's not working or something. And maybe making sure the XYZ axes are correct, and maybe morph targets or something.
I dunno, I think it needs a little more research. Seems like there must be some benefits over an OBJ export.
Which is why I suggested that you learn the basics first. Weight maps are a very basic concept in applying bones and rigging 3D models, and apply across all software. And they are covered in most general books on 3D basics.
Starting off by trying to learn 1,256 different things at the same time is impossible enough, but doing it all backwards makes it super impossible. You're asking lots of different questions across lots of different areas, and like I say it will probably leave you frustrated in the long run. And people tend to throw up their hands and say "this sucks" and walk away after too much banging their head against the wall trying to figure stuff out. But if that's how you want to do it.....
Okay, I'll shut up now. I'm sure I'm just getting everyone angry.
No, not at all. All advice from the experts are good. But that's exactly what I'm trying to do - follow the experts. My questions are not being asked in the order in which I'm trying to learn things. My questions for the most part are based off of either future plans, future needs, or mere passing curiosities that pass through my mind as I'm learning other more basic materials.
I read this thread with great interest.
So what's the real deal? I'm too noob to know the difference, but you gurus can probably come up with an educated answer. In general, is using HEX really better than Carrara or at least provide a fairly notable benefit over the Carrara modeler?
To be honest, I was relaly hoping that Carrara was indeed a one-stop shop for doing 3D stuff a-la Maya (though hoping for simplicity that Carrara offers over something like Maya). It seems I'm finding out that this might not be the case.
Does using Carrara put one on a path of being forced to learn a half dozen more 3rd party apps to get the job done because of what I'm starting to identify as a growing list of Carrara's limitations?
nah, you are just getting the usual forum moaning, if thse Guys used Max and Maya they would moan too!
(and I would do my usual crap in a classier litterbox, I mean sandbox!!! :red: )
I read this thread with great interest.
So what's the real deal? I'm too noob to know the difference, but you gurus can probably come up with an educated answer. In general, is using HEX really better than Carrara or at least provide a fairly notable benefit over the Carrara modeler?
To be honest, I was relaly hoping that Carrara was indeed a one-stop shop for doing 3D stuff a-la Maya (though hoping for simplicity that Carrara offers over something like Maya). It seems I'm finding out that this might not be the case.
Does using Carrara put one on a path of being forced to learn a half dozen more 3rd party apps to get the job done because of what I'm starting to identify as a growing list of Carrara's limitations?
In 3D you will eventually stop doodling and start creating specific projects. NO ONE goes from A to Z in a single program..., ever. If it goes online then it will go through Photoshop and then a web browser before anyone will see it. For video I will use a half-dozen programs from Photoshop to AfterEffects to assemble a composition and record it (or re-render it).... Going INTO Carrara, I might use models that were created in Max, audio recorded in Garage Band, and photographs taken with a Nikon....
This conversation is completely academic until you come across a little quirk or roadblock in YOUR particular workflow.... And it will change from project to project. I basically said this about 4 pages back when you were asking about Hex. It's FREE, use it if you like it. Tools are tools. What you are *missing* by indulging in a hypothetical discussion is the ACTUAL TIME AND HASSLE that it takes to export an intermediary file and load it into another program -- not to mention learning a different interface, sometimes being CONFUSED by the two interfaces and hitting the wrong fast keys, and DOUBLING your bugs because you have just introduced a whole new set of limits because now your project is reduced in what it can do as well as expanded....Now things have to go in a certain order because THIS program has such-and-such feature but can't import something else (like hair, or dynamic cloth, or rigging...). Your WORKFLOW is 80% of the job. There will be MANY times when you will decide to go a certain route because of the workflow, rather than some technical failing or benefit of a particular program.... About 20% of the time (or less) you will insist that a certain program be used because of such-and-such feature.... It is better to go out and start working with Carrara (or whatever you chose) than to read very specific issues of other people's workflows and imagine that has anything to do with what you will discover about your own particular adventure....
Should I buy a motor scooter, or should I buy a Toyota SUV? Hmm....
It depends on what you want to do and where you want to go. And since you haven't told us that yet, since you probably don't know the answer yourself, we can't give you an answer. A motor scooter is great in certain situations, and is probably the best bet if you just want a cheap solution to take you short distances in good weather and be able to dodge traffic.
Likewise, if you only need basic modelling to drop simple stuff in your scene, then you probably need one solution. If you want to make rigged content in the future, you'll probably want another solution. And on and on the story goes. As I've said 460 million times, it depends on what you want to do.
You're asking unanswerable questions, and focusing on software, looking for a perfect solution (which doesn't exist) to a problem you haven't yet defined. But don't feel bad, that's what 99% of hobbyists do. And you'll get 998 different opinions from people who are doing stuff completely different from what you're doing. You'll really need only a motor scooter, but you'll get a lot of people recommending you buy a Ferrari because it's awesome.
Relax. Stop asking questions and start figuring out what you're doing and what you want to do. Don't worry about software, because if you stick with this you'll be using a lot of different software whether you like it or not. And what you'll really need is skill and talent and knowledge, which you ain't gonna get from software.
I'll boil down my response up-front, so that you don't have to read my missive: If you haven't purchased Carrara yet, download the free trial, see what it does, how it feels, how it behaves and experiment with it. That's the only way to know if it's what you want or need. I would also suggest that you download and try any trials for the other software you've been contemplating. Then you can make your comparisons of bangs for bucks.
The thing to remember, is that most artists have and use multiple tools. They may have a favorite or an old standby, but whether you're pushing pixels in 2D, 3D or working with traditional mediums like paint or clay, you'll use a myriad of tools through-out the creation process. With 3D modeling, you'll use software to create the model, but you may have to work in an image editor to create texture maps. For 3D animations, you might render in Carrara, throw the video into a video editor for compositing, jump to a sound program to create sound f/x or music, and back to the video editor to finish it up. There is no one-stop shop. Not even Maya or C4D can do it all from within the program.
Most of what I've read in this thread so far is opinion and personal preference. Roygee likes the set-up tools for rigging in DAZ Studio more than Carrara's which is fine. D/S's rigging tools are Poser compatible, whereas the rigging tools in Carrara are native to Carrara only. There are ways to get rigs and animations out for other applications, but it's not a native feature. If you want Poser style rigged models to sell or distribute, then Roygee's rigging workflow may be what you need.
Roygee and others also like Hexagon as a modeling application which is also fine, but I haven't really read that the Carrara vertex modeler is hobbled. The differences are probably in that Carrara is missing a specialized tool or function or two, or calls them by a different name. I'm also sure the interface is different as well. It's also important to note, that aside from different UIs and a few different bells and whistles, if you're learning how to create vertex models, you can take what you learn in one program and apply it to another.
If you want to see some vertex modeling done in Carrara, look for some of Richard Chaos's work. He uses both Hex and Carrara's vertex modelers.
I will point out again, that Hexagon is strictly a vertex modeling program. That's it. No rigging, no animating, no rendering. Carrara Pro has a vertex modeler, it also has a spline modeler, meta-ball modeler, terrain creation tools, rigging tools, realistic sky editor, plant editor, to create your own trees and such, volumetric clouds, two different replicators, dynamic hair, bullet physics, robust shading capabilities, complex lighting models, such as IBL, full GI, caustics, shape lights, animating tools with many different tweeners, graph editor for keyframes and tweeners, NLA clips, etc. etc. Are there short-comings? Yes. Are some of the features a bit creaky or touchy? Yes. Is DAZ working on issues and improving the software? Yes, just not as fast as some would like. Can it be aggravating sometimes? Yes. It's also a hell of a lot of fun and a great bang for the buck in my opinion.
DAZ Studio and Poser on the other hand, are more like photographers' studios. You can add quite a bit more functionality to DAZ Studio, for instance, if you want to pay for a bunch of plugins, and it still won't be as useful as Carrara is out of the box. There's still no real modeling (except primitives) no keframe editing (AFAIK) and certainly no atmospheres, volumetrics, replicators and terrain creation tools to name a few. For some people, it's all they'll ever need, which isn't meant to detract from them, but for others, myself included, it's like hitting a ceiling. You want to go higher, but you can't.
Wow, Evil, nice response. Actually it just gave me an idea...
Since the question comes up so often, maybe we should have a sticky or something in this forum (or maybe one of the more general forums) that answers the general question about choosing software, etc. And we should put your post as a general answer to the question. I think it covers it pretty well. Is there an FAQ forum around here somewhere?