Best place to go after Carrara?
Yofiel
Posts: 204
Hi folks, much as I love Carrara, I am starting a large project and Carrara just chokes on the number of polygons in it.
Im really sad to ask this, but what are opinions on the best commercial alternative for a large-scale landscape model?
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Blender
Here is a review of some software on this person's 'top' list. Not specific to landscapes, but perhaps worth a look. Agreeing with Wendy, Blender is on the list. I have no experience with the following landscape programs, but I've seen others mention Vue, Terragon, and World Creator. https://all3dp.com/1/best-free-3d-modeling-software-3d-cad-3d-design-software/
Also the enormous amount of tutorials on youtube for basically everything.
Wow. Lot's going on in my time without internet... again! :|
As much as I love Carrara, I've always known that there is a whole world of 3D apps out there that do a lot better with many things.
I could go on about how lucky I feel to be in a position where Carrara rocks for what I want it to do, but we've all heard that before!
I know of 3ds Max, which is high dollar, but it's very good. My professional friend at Sony told me to use Maya, because it's like 3ds on steroids.
We had a fellow who used to be a Carrara user but couldn't stand the Poser-esque interface and switched to Cinema 4D, and came back to claim that it works with Daz/Poser figures just as easily as Carrara - but I'm not so sure.
Many artists making products for Daz have switched from their expensive Maya/Max subscriptions to Modo, which was the big, growing craze. But it seems pretty costly now too, whereas as the time it seemed a lot more affordable.
The fellow who taught me the ropes in 3ds Max has switched entirely (he's a professional 3d artist as well) to Zbrush, where he not only models but also creates textures, UV Maps, etc., all within Zbrush. He does mechanical-like 3d work.
As far as what can handle lots and lots of polygons with large texture maps, etc., I'm not entirely sure which handles those the best.
I brought up Max and Maya in the beginning because I know that Weta Digital and ILM along with other top studios run ,either or both of those throughout the studio, often also including Houdini, which I know nothing about.
But most large studios break projects into pieces and assign them to a team, so I'm not sure whether you'd get the mileage you're looking for - but in the past I've seen many Max/Maya artists commending themselves for how many polygons they've made to create a single model.
I always thought that was kind of strange, because Stonemason is a true professional and he makes use of well used cinematic tricks to make a few polygons look like a million.
I always wanted to add Lightwave to my arsenal, but I know there's a lot of doubt about whether the new owners will do anything with it, or just let it die.
I always liked the price of a perpetual license of Lightwave. It also has a lot of the Big Boy wonders that Carrara might lack.
I know a 3D artist that worked for a studio that already had Lightwave, and had them also get Carrara so that they could work more easily with Daz/Poser style content. But said that they still always went to Lightwave whe it came time to render.
As long as I've been doing this (in Carrara) I've seen promo ads for other software that made me want to add them to my studio but since I don't make any money from this, I never really could afford it. Then the whole Subscription thing came out and really kind of made things harder for someone like me with a dismal income at best.
Blender has grown immensely over that past many years and is getting better and better all the time - and with plenty of free and purchace-able education regarding its use.
Again, not sure how well it can handle vast numbers of polygons.
Oh man... Dart wrote another marathon!
I better get back to work!
" ... the best commercial alternative for a large-scale landscape model ... "
I like E-on software's VUE, which is now subscription only with several price levels, the lowest which I use is between $100 and $200 depending on the frequent sales. More here:
https://info.e-onsoftware.com/vue/overview
I used some VUE stills in this short animation, start ~0:35
I go shopping...
got some coco pops yesterday... looking forward to that..
ha ha I was going to say "to the pub" but I don't drink anymore. Or any less...
Well I was thinking, I only have 4GB vram on a gtx1650 super. Although this is hardly the ideal time to upgrade a video card, would going for 12gb vram on a 3060 make a real difference in carrara? Maybe it is memory bound not application bound.
if you have Octane Render for Carrara otherwise probably not
I tried octane and I really didnt like it. I like carrara's renderer. drat.
I lke Vue's concept but again I preferred Carrara's renderer.
I'll have a look at Cinma4D I guess. Shame about lighwave going backwater.
Carrara is actually demanding on the openCL aspect of the graphics card, it definitely performs better with one than without, that said the performance difference is in the assemble room and hair simulation not the render engine.
I do believe the software settings affect that, that said I have a 980ti on one computer and integrated intel graphics on the other one and the differences are negligible.
The latter computer has a better CPU and that is considerably better for rendering.
it comes down to what sort of hardware you are using what program will suit you best, I use Unreal Engine quite a lot and that would definitely benefit from a better graphics card than I have but is still quite useable for me.
It has a lot of awesome terrain features and free use of Quixel Megascans, also they give away lots of nice content each month, I use Carrara almost exclusively as my modeling and rigging software though even though I have Zbrush.
Yes its the aseembly room where I was having problems. I bought the RTX 3060 OC with 12GB. It was only $400 over MSRP so i feel I got off lightly. I could drive four hours and stand in line for another three on the off chance the scalpers don't beat me to it at Best Buy this morning, but Ive got too old for that kind of thing lol.
Ill let you know how it is, it arrives in a week. Thanks for all your answers )
I agree. Blender nowadays is incredible and the interface is not as complicated as used to be. Actually, the latest UI changes brought it somewhat close to the way Carrara is set up, just with plenty more tools and probably more technical view rather than artistic one that we see in Carrara. If tools like Maya or Modo are expensive and there are no plans to get job position at some studio that requires tools like Maya, 3DS MAX etc, I think Blender is perfect. Considering it is as good or even better than other commercial software.
I agree. Every year or two, I give Blender a try. Had been frustrated and gave up multiple times over multiple years. I just started another 'I will give Blender a try' period. I am having much more success dealing with the new interface, etc. I've also been trying ZBrush and others with subscription services. I am confident tht ultimately I will be using Blender for many basic functions, and I will quit most of the subscription services.
They have made great progress in the last 5yrs with Blender, v3.0 even added an asset manager, sorely needed.
I'm mostly still using Blender 2.79. It perfectly fits my needs In most cases.
Well I got a trial of cinema4d. It could load my scene in about 2 minutes, even with the GTX-1650-super. But I got an out-of-memory error on rendering.
First the 16gb memory upgrade arrived. With 32gb I was able to render in cinema4d too. I tried Carrara with 32gb, but still infinite wait on loading scene. Then the rtx3060 with 12gb vram arrived.
On Carrara with the rtx3060 and 12gb vram it takes about 7 minutes to import the quad FBX scene to load, during which only a wait cursor is displayed. It was unable to open a triangle version of the FBX. I was able to move in the scene but it was a little jerky, about 1/3 second delay between redraws, making it a little difficult to position. I tried switching to the Carrara modeling room to get a report on the total number of polygons, and after about another 7 minutes it just showed an empty room. But I was able to switch back to the assembly room almost immediately.
Cinema4D opens both quad and triangle versions of the FBX in less than a minute. Even with only gtx1650, movement was smooth in the assembly view. With the RTX3060 it is as If I am just drawing a primitive. Also I looked at the forums and tutorials. There are lots of them but not all of them are about modeling or rendering, a lot of them are about inserting things into movies. Im a little uncertain about whether to use opengl or redschift of the textures, and it does still seem to be rather a binary choice, but Im still learning.
I also tried Blender version 2.93, the current 2.x version. Blender was unable to open the quads FBX file with the skydome, but was able to open a triangle FBX file without the skydome, in about 3 minutes. Screenshot attached. Scrolling was smooth with the RTX3060. I didn't try Blender when I had the GTX1650-Super installed.
Maxon has moved redshift onto its own site and licenses it with cineam4d for $100/month, or cinema4d by itself for $60/month. So Im going to compare the renderers between Blender and Cinema4D next.
do try Unreal Engine too, it is free
I have not tried UE5 early release yet but the Nanite technology looks interesting
The key is not to give up. Actually I had somewhat similar start with Carrara, at first it didn;t make sense to me, and I wanted to give up, but then, I thought I read so many interesting stories about it and that people enjoy it's interface, so I invested some time and got accustomed to a level, that other software seemed horrid UI design choice in comparison to Carrara. All it needs is just some patience and getting used to. I am not doing much 3D nowadays, but Blender appears to acquire some of Carrara ways. In Carrara we have rooms for asset handling, model room, shader room etc. Blender now has UI layouts and tabs for specific tasks like modeling, animation etc. Almost like Carrara. I am sure with asset manager Blender 3 might become close to what Carrara could have becomed, just with way more buttons and alsmot endless features.
I do use it a lot and it is awesome, would recomend
but I prefer modeling stuff in Carrara to Blender and other programs and there are things Carrara does other software just doesn't as easily including Unreal
I've never seen Houdini in person and, after seeing this, I don't even think I've ever seen a picture of the interface.
At about 40 minutes into this awesome lecture on water simulations - specifically in Houdini for major movies and TV, we get a look at the interface.
It looks like a really nice layout! The way there's so many things right in your face, it really kinda reminds me of Carrara in a way. Don't beat me up! I know that Carrara is truly a toy compared to Houdini... just making a little visual note! LOL
I found it awful
is all nodes
apparently it is similar to Cinema 4D which puts me off of that too
I'm okay with nodes, but I also just can't get away from the fact that Carrara is such a wonderful interface for me.
I liked the look and feel of the navigation tools in Poser, but they were way too big - always in my way. Carrara's are just like that, but tiny!