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My sentiments exactly. :coolsmirk:
We should really come up with our own line of Carrara figures, modeled, rigged, and implemented in Carrara only.
That's a great idea Dartanbeck... surprised it's never been done on a serious, concerted level. Considering the talent of the Carrara community and the tools in place it's downright peculiar...
I agree...great idea. But it might have to wait a bit. It will go on the "to do" list right after the "community movie projects". :)
I finished it long ago.
Not a bad idea actually. It originally started with Poser, Carrara having it's own figure line would be interesting.
Given every so often we see at other sites new independant figure lines come out. Dawn being one such example has gained quite the popular community following. Each have their own rigging, morph sets, clothing and accesorries line, texture sets etc. If i'm not mistaken, there's already a Dawn to Genesis converter or clone for D|S.
Modeling aspect, might be quite the challenge, moreso done completely and natively in Carrara.
I still see myself as a noob when it comes to modeling, usually finding creative quick fixes and solutions via Carrara's modeling room, custom morph fixes for clothing, material zone re-zoning for specific 1 time needs, some props, and alteration of static props as needed.
Even though I'm putting more time into learning modeling. In hexagon I learned how to make some sci-fi upper torso or armor plating, but doing a human figure would be out of my scope... I've been also trying other modeling programs also, to see if there's something that better suits my work flow. If Hexagon used realworld units of measurement, it wouldn't be such a headache for me to figure out size and scale when jumping between Inch, Feet, and Meters for certain parts. If Carrara's modeler had some of Hexagon's features (and some tool functions that weren't wonky, including uv-mapping), be able to change or accept different units of measurement withing the modeler, etc as well as an objects item/instances list... Either one of those modelers would be the best modelers out there rivaling the big ones...
;)
Wendy - how did I miss that first time around?!
I kinda like the idea, but one would have to ask - why? It is a huge amount of work to produce a figure which would compete with those already available today, and making it Carrara only would limit your market. Unless there were something that you could do in Carrara that couldn't be done in other programs like Poser and DS, what would be the point? Most current figures (except G3F obviously) are already supported in Carrara. And it is not just the figure, you would need loads of clothes, characters, hairs etc in order for it to be attractive, and most artists will be attracted to where the volume is for their work. So I can't see it taking off, even if you were to make it. Far better to maximise your market by ensuring maximum compatibility.
Maybe a better idea would be for DAZ to give a free copy of Carrara to all PAs and to insist on a compatible set of Carrara shaders for any new content, in the same way that they used to stress DSON Companion files for Poser compatibility. That would make it easier for people coming from Poser and DS to get the best results in Carrara with minimal effort.
Good thinking there.
For Carrara to continue to be developed, the user base needs to support Daz3D store.
It doesn't always have to be similar same-old clothing accessories content.
It doesn't even have to be content.
Carrara is more like LightWave than Daz Studio. LightWave is super supportive of its robust plugin community.
Make it more attractive for add-on and plugin developers to sell Carrara products on official store.
Make a more solid at the core Carrara 9.
Package Carrara as the Lightwave/Blender with WELL-INTEGRATED preset human/animal characters and content AND plugins. There is not yet such CG app in the market. Yet.
I will pay what I paid Reallusion for iClone+3DXchange Pipeline for a solid Carrara9 on top of well-supported Carrara plugins.
EDIT: and most importantly, keep the loyal long-suffering Carrarists informed of what's coming or not coming. There's only so much optimisim to counter the abandonware rumors if the official attitude is just deafening silence about G1 G2 G3 or C9. On the fence new comers like me needs to see more hopeful signs.
Wendy - how did I miss that first time around?!
dunno, I posted it to the threads at the time :lol:
I think that's the key point. My collection of Gen4 content - all compatible content - is very large and still growing (although not so much with DAZ purchases), so it would be difficult to decide to "start over".
Carrara 9 will be out DAZ soon. It will include integration for G3F and G3M and be able to use the iRay render engine. The interface will not be updated and the software will not be more OS independent.
My crystal ball never lies, it predicted that the economy would have a down cycle and then an up cycle.
It predicted that proof of snakes legs would be discovered ( http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/07/23/a-fossil-snake-with-four-legs/ ).
It predicted that DAZ would become a company run by a venture capital group that prefers minimal staff and maximum out source and that was back in May 2012.
"With the new partnership and the inclusion of the venture capital companies, control shifted to the Board of Directors and to this day DAZ is a venture capital controlled and run company. It was this board that brought on a new CEO and in time ushered Dan out the door." - Behind the Curtain - Christopher Creek Spotlight Interview
(http://hivewire3d.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/it-s-about-the-art/contributing-artist-spotlight/162457-behind-the-curtain-christopher-creek-spotlight-interview/page5)
The purpose of venture capital is to invest low and sell high by going public or selling to a company that needs some aspect of the company. Labour is the primary cost which vc always looks to reduce.
Daz is a content company. Daz Studio, Carrara, Hexagon, and Bryce are merely tools to sell more content. The revenue cycle on software release is very limited. You sell alot on release day then sales trickle until the next release. Content can sell year round. If selling content is your goal, how does Carrara fit that goal. It's primary function is content creation/manipulation. Daz Studio is manipulation. So in the short term you spend your dollars on DS. But Daz, Renderosity, RDNA have a bigger problem looming on the horizon. Too much content is already available. Issues of 3D printing and game content. How to re-align their business model/licences to to take advantage of these issues. Society is moving to an educated class of coders and content creators with tools that will make creation more abstract and therefore require less techincal knowledge and more creative thinking.
Carrara is great and I have spent a fortune on it but the times they are a changing and Daz needs to think about how to keep generating new revenue. Genesis 3 is a stop gap for company trying to figure out how to exploit another market (professional 3D). Selling G3F and getting people to re-buy everything they bought for previous generations will hold them over for the next year while they try sell the integration of their content into professional packages. IRay and G3F are first steps in try to get Daz content integrated into the 3Dstudio type pipeline.
So when will Carrara 9 come out. When the small out sourced developer group gets it done. Daz Venture Capital Group (DVCG) is focused on selling content. They have not abandoned Carrara, they just don't spend much money on its development because it won't mean a huge influx of content sales when its released. Same with Bryce and Hexagon.
Where they could see an influx of content sales would be a DVCG created open source bridge between Daz Studio and Blender. But don't hold your breadth. I believe DVCP sees more content sales opportunity in try to licence its content library to Ubisoft/EA/Bethesda type companies and then using that type of sales to try and sell off Daz by saying look at our potential value to a prospective buyer or going public.
Ofcourse my disclaimer is that all this is just my personal opinion based on over 35 years observing venture capital investments.
hjake - interesting analysis - time will tell!
Hey you want to buy a crystal ball? <smile>
I have been doing all the Carrara Tutorials you did for Infinite skills. They are great, thanks for your work.
And to anyone else reading this, yes, they will definitely improve your Carrara work flow and quality, definitely worth the investment. It will show that Carrara can do all you need right now not waiting for Carrara 9.
Thanks for the kind words!
Carrara is a GREAT piece of software and I can see my self using it for a VERY long time. My only concern is going forward some content providers are dropping support of Carrara (or at least the Poser files I had been using in Carrara). Most worrying is Stonemason, whose work is ALWAYS somehow getting better. His last few sets have been Daz only.
Does DUF actually work in 8.5?
For every one person that swears it does, 3 more people say nay.
I don't need V7 to work in Carrara, as much as I need DUF (and V6).
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed and spread the word about the power of Carrara to all who will listen.
P.S. PhilW's tutorial work is awesome.
I've had trouble with moving parts that don't, e.g. doors that are supposed to slide open. But I've only tried a few, then gave up, deciding to stick with the 2300 Poer format items (1600 from DAZ) and 130 Carrara format items (90 from DAZ) that I already own.
PhilW says he got Stonemason's "Streets Of Old London" (No Poser format) to work with just a few texture fixes, I don't have it so don't know if it has moving parts. Again, I'll stick with the 70 Stonemason products I already own in Poser format.
Wow, hjake. NIce post.
I think we're in close (or total) agreement on most of your points. Although I think you even went a couple steps harsh-er than I usually do when you speculate about how a venture capital group might have an ultimate goal to "reduce labor" and ultimately "sell off DAZ". I'm just glad that you said it, not me..
And I think you're one step ahead of me in your analysis of the content market when you say "But Daz, Renderosity, RDNA have a bigger problem looming on the horizon. Too much content is already available."
I never really considered that. I guess I always assumed that the content market was mainly comprised of an almost constant flow of relatively new users who hear about the free software, download it, and decide to buy some content. And when the thrill wears off they move on to something else. But you raise an interesting point. Maybe the content market is getting saturated. And maybe that's why whenever I look at the content stores I think in the back of my mind "geez, I've seen all this stuff before over the years". Maybe there's only so much "bimbo-wear" (Isn't that EP's term?) and spaceships and poses you can have before people lose interest.
Anyway, thanks for the analysis.
Thanks for the kind words. As Steve K said, Streets of London works fine except for the UV mapping on one section of road (as far as I have seen), which is easily fixed. I know that Wendy (madcatlady) has used Stonemason's NWX Section 18 successfully in her recent video. I don't think either of these contain animatable parts as far as I am aware. But my overall experience of using Genesis, G2 and DUF in general is mostly pretty positive.
Thanks for caring enough to reply. I guess it could seem harsh, but venture captial is about "it's not personal, it's just business". And to be fair to venture capital investment, the founders of DAZ should have seen this coming when they approved the investment. If you sell shares to venture capital or go public then you are saying I accept loss of control in trade for cash reward. Unfortunately, it is the people who work at the company that end up paying the price (reception, customer service, sales, production). They don't get golden handshakes. The only big going public companies that rewarded all its employees when it went public that I can think of are apple and google.
But maybe my point got buried in my LONG speculation. The summary point I was trying to make is that Daz knows Carrara is worth spending on, but it is not worth spending much upon, so they out sourced (although it may have always been out sourced to the fellows in France, but are spending much less on it) and so it will be ready when its ready (very low priority). Plus projects like Blender are maturing and that may make it obsolete by default.
Daz venture capital is a business (aka not personal) and they know they need to find new revenue streams to make their investment return pay off. Venture capital buys in to sell off not stay the course. The idea is buy when value is low, create high value then go public or find someone to buy the company. Legitmate vc do this over the long term, like the Daz vc, dis-reputable vc buy strip and sell off valuable pieces.
They are NOT thumbing their nose at Carrara, it just doesn't make financial sense to make it a priority. Even the founders of Daz do their modeling in Modo, not Carrara.
Absolutely true. After being in the business world for many years, I'm often amazed at how often you'll see a company that reaches the point where they need outside funding to grow the business, and they find investors who agree to invest, but once they bring outside investors on board, the original owners seem somewhat surprised that they have suddenly lost control and their original vision is no longer the driving factor. And in fact the folks with the original vision are often shuffled out the door. It's about money and investor/shareholder value.
And many customers tend to characterize things in, as you say, more personal terms rather than realizing "it's not personal, it just business". They view the shift in focus towards shareholder/investor value as "corporate greediness" and a loss of "love" for the products. Love has nothing to do with it. The folks who give you money to grow your company want the best return possible on their investment, even if that means selling the company for a big profit and moving on. It's no different from anyone who buys some stock in Apple or Facebook, hoping to get the best dividend from their investment, even if they have no clue exactly what those companies they invested in actually do.
Oh wait, I guess Apple wasn't a good example. Looks like they're taking a beating lately, down 10% today.
This week I got email from several different software companies (including one rival to Daz) saying that they are working on the next versions of their software titles. Got me really excited.
Would be really nice to get the same email from Daz regarding Carrara!
Thinking along the same lines as hjake, There are some things happening that make me wonder is the VC are looking to sell. There has been an almost manic nature to the incredible number of sales lately. That, in conjunction with the inclusion of Iray in DS, then the release of G3F, V7, Eva 7, and now Bethany 7, all in a little over a month, could easily be construed as push to show a big increase in profits and tech to look good for prospective buyers. Of course it could also be that DAZ3D has hired (or contracted) a good modeler(s) and texture artist(s) and they are just kicking out new stuff at an accelerated rate, and that the sales are just a part of a push to increase profits to pay for accelerated development.
All just pure speculation, which probably doesn't even come close to the reality of what the future plans of the DAZ3D leadership are (other than the deafening silence about the future of Carrara and support for Genesis 3 may speak volumes).
to add to your point, it is also summer which often means slower sales in some industries, so maybe they are dumping a lot at once to keep the sales figures up. I worked for a POS (point of sales) distributor many years ago and if the quarter wasn't going to meet the targets, my sales guys got volume discount bonanzas the keep the figures up. Unfortunately, then our dealers were stocked to the rafters which made next quarter more challenging. Typical short term thinking.
I don't think they are actively looking for a buyer now. Imagine if they could announce that some major publicly traded studio has signed an agreement in principle to use the DAZ library in their production pipeline. Genesis 3 may make that dream a tiny bit more realistic, especially with the newer graphics hardware coming to mainstream. Nvidia, a month or so ago showed off a project they are working on that could allow for many effects done in rendering to be done realtime in a game. If you can say our small company now has an in road with a money bags company, suddenly you become much more attractive to buyers or going public.
they are working on the next version of carrara, but unlike smith micro poser it is not top priority. Smith Micro makes its money from all the software it sells. The next version is dated poser 2016 (so maybe october 2015). they do a 2 year publishing cycle. they had to say something now to deal any concerns that daz studio using iray and genesis 3 might grab some potential newcomers and reassure existing customers that they are on top of things.
to be fair to daz, i used to deal with caligari truespace before the microsoft acquisition and closure. They had trouble bringing updates and new versions in a timely manner. daz probably has less than 5 people dedicated to carrara and of that only 1 or 2 maybe full time on it.
you know when you look at it. carrara 8.5 did more than just fix bugs, so you could say it was a no charge upgrade to carrara 9 for existing version 8 users. Rather call it 9 and have everyone complain it came so soon after 8 and not enough new stuff. by yourself some time and good will and call it 8.5. maybe the glass is half full ..... or maybe i'm full of it :-)
I'm not a software guy, but I do know that with most software it's not as easy as hiring some guy out of school and sitting him down and saying "okay, make xxxxxx work in this software". You need people who understand that particular code, how it was designed and written, and/or have some really good documentation (which rarely exists...), before you can even start to do serious development. And as I've explained often before, coding some of the cool and fancy stuff in 3D apps requires someone who is pretty much an expert in the algorithms that the industry uses to implement stuff like cloth and fluids and animation tools and new characters with their cool weight mapping and and so on. It is extremely complex. Pull a software guy off the street and ask him to code a new character that has this cool weight mapping and he'll say "Huh? What does 'weight mapping' mean?"
And if you have some guys who can do cool stuff in one app, it doesn't mean they can do much of anything in another app. Two apps which do similar things can look entirely different, depending on who designed and wrote and (hopefully) documented the code. Which is why I'm so cautious about assuming that anyone is working on any software. Aside from the business reasons of whether or not to invest in development of a particular app, there's the simple reasons of "hey, do we have, or can we get anyone who can write code for this software?"
Maybe they are working on the next version of Carrara, like you say, but there are a lot of people who have been holding their breath in anticipation in recent years and they're starting to turn purple.
They've got at least one guy/gal who's able at least to figure their way around the code - or they wouldn't have been able to put out 8.5.1.
Tim_A, you may be right...I hope so. I thought 8.5.1 was more about content and the CMS and all that postgres stuff than Carrara, but I'm probably totally wrong on that.
One example of non-content improvement in C8.5 was fixing duplicate with symmetry in the vertex modeler (problem with normals). The disclaimer "more about" is true, but does not exclude all non-content improvements.