I have Carrara 3D Basics. I'm in the entry level of this 3D world. My one problem is that I can't get these 3D images over video. Is that not possible with Carrara 3D Basics? And if not, what program should I get without spending alot?

Well Sometimes I dont understand why Carrara 3D basics is sold in market. It was probably for 'Family Fun 3D App' to screw around with just 3D. If you want to have good 3D proggie then spend to what the company asked for because it is all sorted out to pay the bills and profit for hard work.

Are you saying 3D Basics can not do images over video? What program would you recommend?

And to continue Carrara development. I supports it because it is best proggie than all the 'Twight Zone' 3D proggies; Lightwave, 3D Max, and rest other complicated proggies. Carrara completes my work more than other proggies.

Speditor I never looked into Carrara Basics. I have to recommend you is to get Carrara 3 because it does the job you wanted.

Sorry but what is a proggie?

Proggie is a slang for program

Can Carrara 3 put animated images over video such as quicktime video? I can't find anything that says it does. And have you heard of "Boris Red"? What are your thoughts on it?

The real version of Carrara supports video files as textures, you can apply video just like a texture...

Someone just now told me I could put my images from 3D Basics into FCP and put it over video by using the Premultiplied Alpha Channel in FCP. Anyone know what this means? I'm lost.

I think what you are after is generally referred to as rotoscoping. In the full Carrara Studio program you can do this by (say) having a quicktime movie play on the background of your animation or as a texture on a plane somewhere. I don't know whether 3D Basics will do it. Otherwise you need a program which will composite your animation with your movie, such as Premiere - I expect there's a cheap/free one out there somewhere.

Falconperigot is correct. As far as I know, you can do this with 3d Basics. In the properties tab (I assume 3dB has one) in the assembly room, follow the steps from the image: 1) click the drop-down 2) select "scene" 3) click the drop-down on "backdrop", and select "map" 4) click the open button, and open the source you want to use (it can be a bitmap or movie) This will allow you to rotoscope, which is nice when you are trying to match camera movements. For low quality video, it may even work for the final, but using an video editor probably will get better results. As to whether to upgrade 3d Basics to Studio, once you've realized that the spline modeler doesn't do all it should-- took me about a week back when I was using Raydream 3d (that was about four versions ago)-- Carrara Studio will pretty much buy itself. Hope this helps. EMC

Wow thanks for that info! I'm at work now so I will try that tonight. However if it loses video quality then I may need a way to export the 3D image to bring it into Final Cut Pro. And I would imagine I lose the audio of my quicktime movie bringing it into 3D Basics. BTW- What is spline modeler and what does it do? I never used it. Perhaps someone can make a good pitch as to why I need to upgrade. I'm not looking into making a lot of animation. My main purpose is for animated text and logos. And does the upgrade version give everything you need? I just heard today about "Boris Red" and that looked amazing yet cost a lot!

For animated text and logos, there may not be a good reason. However, when you get around to logos, a new feature in Carrara 3 is bevels in the spline modeler, which will help make smarmy logos. If you can afford it, you can make sense of it. The Global Illumination (GI) renderer is really nice (probably the best on the market for the price), and I've pretty much stopped making images that don't use GI.

You should check out the spline modeler in Basics. In it you make a cross section, and extrude it along a path to make a shape. The vertex modeler, which you get in Carrara Studio, will allow you to make objects by creating points in 3d space, and linking them to create a mesh. Basically, it makes modeling much easier once you've got your head around the idea.

You might also want to wait and see what features Carrara Studio 4 has... They are supposedly making improvements to the animation features.

If you render using a movie in the backdrop, I'm pretty sure you'll loose any sound it has.

EMC

What is a smarmy logo and global illumination? And when does Studio 4 come out?

In my opinion you should not wait for Carrara 4. You can always upgrade to C4 from C3 at reasonable price. While you use C3 you ll learn alot how to use it and prepared to for C4. I do not think Eovia team would work on background effect in C4.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=403252&Start=1&Artist=EMC&ByArtist=Yes

I don't know when 4 is coming, but I should imagine sometime in the fall-- it won't have any significant advances in any of the things your talking about (I think). The only reason I said you might want to wait, was because it sounds like you don't really think you need it, and if you don't, it should be cheaper to buy the one than to upgrade twice within half a year. Would you get the difference in cost out of having Studio half a year earlier? If you would then buy it.

Global Illumination is excellent. The gist is this: in the real world light bounces off objects. If the sun is shining in the window, the ceiling is partially lit. This is because the light coming through the window is bouncing off the floor, and lighting the ceiling.

When you use the GI renderer, it will do all the calculations as to what needs to be lit by this bounced light. I might also add that caustic effects (light intensified though a lens, for instance), can be done with the GI render. If you want to do anything photo-realistic, the GI render comes in handy.

Smarmy means: sleek, or unctuously or fulsomely flattering-- sorry, I just sort of enjoy words like that...

The link is to a render I did a while ago, when I was starting to play with the GI renderer-- the middle one is probably the best.

EMC

I like the first one. The question how long would he want to wait for C4 to do his project. For me with my project, I wouldnt wait that long. I have been making scenes since I got C3. If C4 have some great features to enchance my scenes then sure I would upgrade it and finish the tasks what I did in C3 period of time.

Well guys, I've tested it out and it works. Thanks so much for your help!!! It works within Carrara Basics 3D and within Final Cut Pro. The only drawback to using it in Carrara Basics is that you lose the audio when rendering, unless I'm doing something wrong. In FCP I can move the logo around and reshape the size through out the video. I'm very happy! Now I just need to decide if I need to upgrade my 3D program. Is there a trial version I could test out?

Yes Eovia have C3 demo on their website. www.eovia.com

To save you time and from one render generation, though it does not give much generation loss if you choose animation codec or none compression, just the time and if you haven't upgraded to FCP 4 yet you should consider it. It has pretty amazing flying logos stuff and compositing in it I would not want to be without. Thats for flying logos and other TV stuff, then there is the wide world og 3D rendering. You should take both!

Snekkis

I do have FCP 4 but now I'm looking for a program that does 3D text morphing/changing. I've downloaded Carrara 3 to test out but don't see a huge difference for what I need to do which is animated text. Perhaps someone could let me know about the features?

3D text morphing and changing. I never went into it before. I think Ulead have this function. I am solely 3D animator with characters and scenes.

It looks like a PC program. Anything for mac? I have a mac. I take it Carrara 3 does not have this capability?

speditor please do your homework

I thought I did. Ulead is a PC program so I can't use it. I downloaded the Carrara 3 demo and don't see an option where I can morph. Just checking if anyone knew off hand of anything that will allow text to morph into another word.

You should know that Mac has limitations. I personally would like to have Mac just because of how it looks and the operating system. But I am a damn family man with two kids and an annoying wife. I have to get PC to be able to use most of programs for my business for profit to buy a ticket to get myself out of this slum life AND RUN AWAY FROM MY FAMILY.

LOL... I have a family too with my second kid on the way. Sorry but I'm stuck with my Mac.

No beer for you

Attached Link: www.kawachi.zaq.ne.jp/kurozuka/akurodigital/

What do you want to morph? There is a nice plugin for Carrara that can use morph targets, so you can morp from the character T to an elephant if you want. I guess. Animating text is also possible, but you need to dive in the time line editor. And maybe break apart text in individual characters and steps like that. Carrara does not stand out, yet, in the animation department, but you can do a lot if you know where the limitations are (motion path are hard to handle, for instance). Good luck!

Nice plug in I ll get it!! Thank you for posting