Carrara 3 & 5 Handbooks
Dartanbeck
Posts: 21,570
I feel bad for any Carrara fan who hasn't grabbed the Carrara 3 Handbook (paperback + CD ROM) as it seems to have become extinct, and it's a great tool to add to the collection.
I see that, at least on US Amazon, there are only 9 copies of the Carrara 5 Handbook available for order, which is basically an update to the former, but also includes some instructions on Hexagon, which got the tome some less favorable reviews. Personally, I like that he included Hexagon.
I recently bought both of them and find them to be an excellent source of additional Carrara value. So much so that I really wish that I would have also grabbed the far less popular (review-wise) Carrara 1 Bible - but it, too appears to have vanished. I'll keep my eyes open.
Mike de la Flor did an excellent job of organizing the Carrara 3 & 5 Handbooks into sensible order with plenty of tips and diagrams along the way. He begins by showing the reader how to do certain things in Carrara, explaining various concepts along the way. The tutorials that fill out the rest of the book puts these lessons to practice.
Yes, I feel that I have a pretty decent understanding of how to get around in Carrara to do what I need to do. But now that I have a lot of that stuff down to muscle-memory, it feels like a great time to look into the things that I've been bypassing all this time - and it's books like these and videos like PhilW, Cripeman, GKDantas, etc., that truly help to propel me into using these hidden gems.
3dXtract ezine and Carrara 3D Expo are fascinating reading, and they also have tips, tricks and tutorials that inspire me to use things I just never felt the need to explore, and even though it may be for earlier versions of Carrara, most of it is perfectly relavent to modern Carrara as well.
When I say "Hidden Gems" it's funny because, in Carrara these things really aren't hidden as they are in more robust 3D apps. They're right there ready to insert and use - often even with examples right there in the browser! So what I mean by "Hidden" is the fact that my muscle memory has bypassed them from my conscious awareness.
Kind of like how a child, who never has to clean anything ever, can walk past a wrapper on the floor or a big mess without even noticing it - where the Mother will shake her head and bend over to clean it up.
The more times I'd bypass a feature to get on with what I know or am striving to learn, the more I teach my conscious mind to ignore those bypassed features and tools.
This is where college courses turn out students that really know what the hell is going on. Go to college to learn Carrara (is that really a thing? would be cool!) and we'd uncover all of the amazing little (and big) things that the software allows us to achieve.
Browse through it enough and this Carrara discussion forum is also an amazing wealth of information
- hence my creating the ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄
So now I need to continue on that work and try to tweak it out even better. If you can't find what you're looking for in that, try using an internet search instead of a forum search. You'll be amazed at how many topics you can find answers to in this forum using an internet search.
I've added a bunch of it to Dartanbeck.com and have been writing a lot of my own articles there, where I feel that I have a bit more flexibility toward the whole work-in-progress of my written work with images and links and such. So I'll be continuing that but I also want to dig into the ► Forum Help Links and do some editing, cleanup, more indexing and most importantly adding a lot more to it.
I do things much differently though, so many folks might not care for my approach - more like showing a friend a new toy instead of an well-written technical manual, and I also tend to write and show things that are related to 3D CG Filmmaking, so a lot of it is more biased on granting higher speed renders than high resolution wall paintings, but it all should help to show more about the ridiculous amount of work we can achieve using Carrara.
Carrara Cafe is an ever-growing, huge resource of fun and education and those who work it are wonderful, helpful die-hards with a passion for all things Carrara!
The Carrara 3 & 5 Handbooks have feature sections on some plugins, like those from Digital Carver's Guild, which is truly needed, in my opinion.
So another thing I'd really like to focus on as we work this aging software into the future is to showcase and demonstrate more of these amazing plugins we have available to us. Bunyip did some outstanding tutorial work on some plugins in WIPs in the Carrara Render Challenges, so I'll be digging up links to those types of things as well. Valuable stuff!
We may not have a Carrara 6, 7, 8 or 8.5 Handbook, but what we do have is more of a living entity - a growing resource - and, let's face it - the most wonderful CG software Ever Made!!!
Still, being a fan of having a book made of paper to bring with me, read, show others, etc., perhaps some time down the road I can find a way to release something current for us all to have as our own keepsake learning resource(?)
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Comments
Plugins
We Carrara rendographers have an enormous wealth of plugins available to us. Now that many of them have become Free for us, some of us may have just gained a near-overwhelming amount of new possibilities. Some, of course, already have been free - like those from Sparrowhawke 3d, Philemo, Alberto and others.
I've already begun writing and consolidating information on many of these - along with the incredible help from what Jay Nola wrote in my Carrara Information Manual.
Carrara Plugins is my landing page which includes information on many of the singular and small group offerings, where individual pages were made for larger selections on a per-author basis.
To get the ball rolling I used Jay's Plugins Info and FAQ and my own listings, giving me an outline to work from. I've added some new material and made some updates as well, but this is where I can now expand to write about more of these plugins with examples of their use - so keep an eye on these sections.
With Carrara being such a vast topic with so many details, it takes time getting this stuff visible, so please bear with me as I trudge forward.
Wow. We have some truly spectacular plugins to work with! I love this!
I remember the Carrara 3 Handbook, I have no idea why I got rid of it. I remember that Spline Modeler airplane tutorial - the first thing I ever modeled on a computer. Pretty sure mine came out wonky...
I got the C5 Handbook about a year ago mainly for the rigging tutorial but there is sooo much more. I just busted it open again and there is a whole friggin' character modeling tutorial!
Always appreciate you pointing out and cataloging the vast resources available to learn Carrara.
I still have my Carrara 5 Handbook within easy reach of my computer. Not sure where my Carrara 3 handbook is. A lot of my stuff has been in storage in Washington DC for more than a year - Dang that Covid! The Carrara 3 handbook might be in there.
Great stuff.
I have both 3and 5.... and the basics are really great. I especially like the terrain and rigging chapters
Thank you Mike e la Flor wherever you are!
And, Dart, didn't you post the links to all of the magazines that had Carrara tuts in them?
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Silene
Yep. Top post.
3dXtract ezine and Carrara 3D Expo
If you mean other magazines, that wasn't me. Possibly Fractal Dimensia's Comprehensive List of Video Tutorials on Carrara ?
Yes, the ezines. THey are a treasure-trove!
Silene
Agreed! So many lessons, tips, ideas and just plain cool software talk about Carrara and Amapi... So Very Cool!!!