Did Daz give up on the Carrara 8 manual, again?
TRock
Posts: 0
Simple question for the people at Daz. If we can expect a manual, please confirm some time line.
Old forum style here.
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I am certain this will never happen. The much touted substitute, version 7, still has numerous features with TBD as the description. And, when you install Carrara it automatically comes with the version 6 manual.
Even more disturbing, to me, is that the old forum is useless. The amount of instructions and examples there is invaluable. I have attempted to find things in the old archive forum and the search feature (which of course never did work well) did not work at all - just a page of error message jargon.
Searches performed via Google that link to the old site come back with unable to locate (or something similar to that).
And, even more distressing is that this new forum's numerous drawbacks seems to have dampened folks' interest or willingness to post here.
So, yes, is there an update manual in our future? It is now needed more than ever! But again, I doubt it.
Hello,
You can search the old forums in google using the site: keyword. For example, to search for carrara tutorials you can enter
tutorial carrara site:forumarchive.daz3d.com
Hope it helps
Ramon
rubidium,
Thank you, that is very helpful. I appreciate the information and you taking the time to respond.
Dan
Hi All :)
It IS being actively worked on,.. Right Now.
One one the issues is that some of the features, like loading DS shaders, poses etc, is still being worked on in both DS and Carrara 8.5 beta. so that makes it difficult to release a "complete" manual "right now"
also,.. the recent changes in Daz3D Forums has affected the activities of the people involved in preparing the documentation.
but it is being worked on and will be released,.
.
as for when the manual will be available,. you could ask the same question about when Carrarra 8.5 will be released.
there is NO confirmed release date yet, since it's still being worked on, and changed.
Anyone that want to help, ..can.
Not sure what happened, but I had a thoughtful, concise and superduperknowledgeable post written using the "Fast Reply"option and it disappeared into the electron ether... Not liking the new forum engine's "f**ktionality!" Erm- I mean functionality!
They've been trying to roll out fixes to the site as quickly as possible, so they sometimes have to take the site down without warning for a few minutes.
I don't think we're talking about a C8.5 Manual here.
That's a paid "next" version - it holds less interest for the many of us who don't want or care about genocide.
It would be inexcusable to skip a C8.1 Manual before 8.5 comes out!
8.5 is a misnomer. It's C9 by another name
HI Sockratease :)
I think the general concept was,.. to provide a manual (and on-line resource) that would cover the latest versions of Carrara, but would also be applicable to previous versions, if that makes sense,.
Daz3D is currently working on the On-line "Documentation centre" and there's a thread in the commons asking for help
Personally speaking,. it's been hard finding the time recently to help out with the work on this manual., so any volunteers are most welcome.
if you know an area of Carrara well, and can explain how it works, or even just check that what's already written is actually correct and works, or make up some example images to accompany the text,..
then please feel free to contact Kat Briggs at Daz. and help us all out
.
there would of course be a version for Cowrarrar users :)
Hi.
I was just rudely making the point that C8.5 is NOT C8 any more than C8 is C7.
Where's the C7 Manual that was promised?
Oh, wait. They gave up on that when C8 came out - Promising us a C8 manual instead.
Now it seems they gave up on a C8 manual because C9 is in beta (I know they call it 8.5 - but that's a lie!) (it's C9 and don't let them fool you!).
Online documentation is not acceptable to me as most of my work is done offline.
I can't think of anything good about online documentation. The need is for something useable offline - such as a pdf file or something.
Like Professional software companies do.
I'll be insulted if the next manual is for C9. I paid for C6 Pro, and got a decent manual with it. C7 Pro came with an empty promise for one, and now it seems C8 Pro will follow suit.
If "C8.5 Pro" (actually C9) was free, it wouldn't matter. But unless it's $1.99 or less to upgrade and get what I was promised in terms of a C8 manual (even for us non-pc members) I will be very insulted.
They are severely straining their credibility with this pattern.
Hi Sock :)
The C7 Manual is what I always suggested any new user should get hold of,... and it's been available for a long time.
Unfortunately I've no idea right now where the Link has gone to, with all the changes in Forum structure.
but there was definitely a C7 manual, I have it in My Documents folder (61MB) PDF
and according to the file date,.. it's from June 2010
I'm with you on the need for Off-Line documentation, especially for an application as Big a Carrara.
When I mentioned that there would be On-line documentation,. I should also have added that it's my understanding that the Full "Downloadable" manual will also be available as an Acrobat PDF.
As you say,. nobody has mentioned any fixed price for the 8.5 upgrade,.so any guess on what that may be is exactly that, A guess, and apart from a single mention By Dan Farr in a magazine interview, there has been no official statement on C9 from Daz3D.
I'm still going with the fact that this current beta is C8.5 , and in theory should be released as 8.5.
Hope it helps :)
Carrara 7 manual
http://docs.daz3d.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/artzone/pub/software/carrara/carrara7_user_guide.pdf
Carrara docs page
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/artzone/pub/software/carrara/start
Are you talking about a HARD COPY Manual? PRINTED?
I hate this new forum layout.
I was just hoping for a pdf manual for C8. (NOT C8.5) The one Daz promised last year, or maybe it was the year before. Daz has done a good job of erasing history it seems.
I think Daz has made a real dumb move by trying to get rid of old customers that they never delivered to, so erase the forums and wipe every ones years of contribution and start over with a 15 year old forum layout....Maybe none of the new people will notice.
After reading the new TOS, this response may never see the forum, as I may be considered a troll. What a nasty term for a customer that has asked for only what they were promised, over and over.
I would like to say thanks though, they made me look at other software like Blender. Carrara seems to be stuck in the early 90's and this forum is out of the 80's...
Best wishes to all you old timers that I've read and learned from over the past years. Thank you for your time. To bad Daz considered this contribution to have no value.
Thanks
(Not a Troll)
HI TRock :)
I hear you, and it would have been great to get a C8 Manual with C8 when it was released,. and again, the main issues were two things,.. the C7 manual covered most of How Carrara works, and the New bit's (physics) weren't finished to a point where it was possible to accurately create instructions for them that wouldn't be obsolete in a couple of months ( and that's still the case) as the Beta / development of C8 has continued.
As for any business to intentionally get rid of paying customers,.. I don't think anyone thinks that way in business.
The "old" Forums are still available as a "Read only" resource, so all the comments are still there for anyone to access them.
I think just about everyone has some issues with the New forum and the way it works right now,.. but it's new, and it'll change, and there are some real differences with this forum,.. You can actually search for information, and that's a big difference, we can have polls, so we can vote. (democracy in action) .. well it's a start :)
As for Carrara vs other software,.. that's an eternal debate, no matter what you do to carrara, you'll always be able to say, well it doesn't do this, or this.
Back to the Manual,...
The Manual for C8.5 Will cover the C8 version, and previous versions of Carrara.
but because of the changes to the functionality of physics and the layout of it's controls it's impractical to have sections which repeat the same information , but show different images of where the controls for those functions are placed, are and how they work, or don't work for C8.0 or C8.1.
For me,. that's why the beta development of C8 / 8.5 has to be considered as part of finally getting C8 . "whatever" ,.. working as C8
but honestly,. too much development time has been spent on getting Genesis into Carrara, and Bullet Physics still isn't fully working as it should be. which also makes it harder to create a "Working Manual".
But, in saying that,. there are some good new features in with Genesis, and I'd rather have software that was being worked on and improved, than software that wasn't ...but had a complete manual.
:)
Hi 3dage,
Your always a calm voice in this forum when frustration seems to have hit it's limits. I appreciate your positive feedback and have always been grateful for your contributions to the Carrara users. Thank you, and I really mean, thank you.
You seem to have taken a more activist position with respect to the future of the software and seem to have more insight as to future actions of Daz. I guess this means you are now being rewarded for your time now? I Hope.
The hard part is the long history of dodge ball that Daz has played.
Maybe this clean slate of the forum will bring out a change of spirit from Daz but It may be to late for some, I'm afraid.
Thanks.
HI TRock :)
Thanks for the thanks :) it's appreciated.
I wish I was being paid. ..but that doesn't seem to be Daz policy :)
I'm just passionate enough about carrara to give a shoot,
..but Carrara is also one of the main programs I use every day, ...so, selfishly, ..I want to see it get better.
Kat Briggs (from Daz) posted in a thread in the old forums asking for people who knew Carrara, to help out with the Manual production, ..so I volunteered, that's the only reason I know it's being worked on.
As I said earlier in the thread, anyone with some spare time can contact Kat , and help out,
and if "many hands make light work" then we may get a complete manual quicker.
In the past couple of months, I've not had a lot of free time, so "I dropped the ball" this time, and so far, with the new forum, I've no idea what the current status is.
I'm just finishing off the last big project that took up my work time, so, hopefully I can get back into things with the manual, in the next few weeks.
Andy :)