Very nice. Thanks for the info, Mark.

GWeb.

Bob Stockwell has already reply to your question. No symmetry modeling in the VM for this release. Why are you asking for that anyways? Didn't you just purchase Hexagon and upgrade to 1.2 for Symmetrical modeling?
Maybe to you C5 is not worth it cause it lacks symmetry modeling and that is your opinion but it is not the opinion of the majority of users in the community. Not only has Eovia include a vast number of features in this C5 they have also reduce the upgrade price. Just look at all the new features it is more Bang for the buck.

P.S. Like Bob mention. I'm just a very active member in the community and sometimes people think I work for Eovia but I don't. I know how much work goes behind the scenes to get
"all of this features" done. Tons of work everyday. Even now they are busy getting everything final for the December release. Yes there are some features that I wanted that are not included in C5 but I'm very happy with this release.
Now to get back to the Carrara 5 questions.

Later

Ringo

Message edited on: 10/27/2005 16:33

Just to make MY statement... I've been playing with the C5 beta for the last 2 days and I think it ROCKS! The windows version seems to have a very few bugs and they are minor and the added tools make it much easier for me to use. I especial like the small tool that allows all edges to be creased or smoothed. This one small toll is about as handy as you can get! GWeb... I happen to resent that you think you can speak for "any of us" or "we"! Speak for yourself, but don't try to sound like you're the voice of all Carrara users just cause you can't get your "pet tool" in the program. I've heard this broken record for a year now and think it's time to stop. Your posts here, not to mention in other software forums, are constantly negative, well so be it, that's your right, but it's not your right to sound as if you speak for all of us. I didn't elect you to that positions and would like you to stop. mike

Ringo, symmetery function is just a simple feature that really need to include in Carrara for modeling to save us time from working on every side. Let me assume that modeling in Carrara never bothered you or you have never used it.

I am not in favor using with import and export feature to work with application to application. Didnt you know that it is really pain for modeling users.

Trav, who said you are in "US" group? Nope I never said you specifically. I have heard some complaints from other users about symmetery function not included in Carrara. No need to have ballot for this

Message edited on: 10/27/2005 17:22

Hear-hear Mike! I agree GWeb. Stop bothering the rest of us with your attitude. (Off my soapbox.) Now... regarding the stability of C5 Beta... I'm on a windoze xp laptop, and was running a 'particles bouncing off a terrain' (yeah! particles reacting to other objects and a 'gravity' force!! :D ) render as I also was cruzing the net last night. A website tried to load a popup, my browser countered, both lost and the program crashed taking the desktop down with it! (Explorer, not Internet Explorer, but the program we all see as the desktop) As the machine re-booted Explorer (for all essential purposes looking like my whole machine had re-booted...) Carrara was still rendering and finished with this picture. (Not the greatest, but they ARE interacting with the terrain and gravity) Now THAT'S stability! :D

Any chance this version of Carrara will be 64bit compliant?

...I've never been a big fan of the Eovia modeling options either. I use Silo and, occassionally, Amapi. But C4 Pro still rocks even if you don't use it to model. Looks to me like C5 Pro is gonna be terrific. I'm gonna buy it even though I probably still won't use the modelers ;)

For the record, I've been making plenty of symmetrical models in Amapi and Hexagon (before its 1.2 update) and importing them as OBJ into Carrara scenes for rendering. And having fun doing so.

How does the water and foam look? As a Vue user I find the water/foam lacking in some respects. How does this compare? Hope I'm not being a pest, but the features in CP5 are all I've been looking for wrapped in neat little package. So as questions pass thru my wee brain I feel the need to ask. TIA :)

I do almost all of my modelling in Carrara's vm and although symmetrical modelling would have been nice , what they have added is much more valuable to me as a modeler. The new Extract edge tools,bevels,soft selections,the new selection tools and all the polyline tools and Gordon,Ruled surfaces,coon surfaces the manipulator... It is a long list of what they added. I will be very happy with using the duplicate with symmetry trick to mimick symmetrical modeling.

I am sure they all are nice features. To be honest I am really tempted to buy C5 because of those awesome features. Symmetrical modelling would be NICE and able to use most out of Carrara with VM room or other modeling room inside Carrara.

dlk30341, Water depends a little on your skill with the Shaders. However, with the addition of SSS, tileable terrains, the ability to animate displacement mapping plus HDRI, it's tough to go wrong. As for foam and that kind of stuff, patience is a virtue. ;)

Thanks Mark :).....be advised, patience is NOT one of virtues LOL...but I am getting better :) I do have patience in learning though. As long as I have manual & helpful people & some tuts I'm good to go :) I'd rather know things upfront, that includes all the pluses & minuses....I'm not into surprises ;) I do appreciate your time :) Thank You :)

I will reask...for those early adopters. Are there any new export options other than those listed in pro? Is the psd format maybe improved for example? Also, how about procedural materials, normal map support, and texture baking or are plugins still necessary for all of these? Is the GI illumination enhancement similiar to illumination baking or something else. Also is the render time improved? Also, how are the animation improvements? Would be nice to get a more detailed list of features on site, but since it's beta. Was that enough questions? :D

dlk30341 The new fresnel in the reflection and transparency channels help out with the water shaders too.

Very cool.....thanks mmoir...all the info is appreciated :)

Also interested in a reply to ren-mems thread too. This package looks very exciting :) Haven't been this excited in a while....it's sort of re-juvenating :) If you know what I mean.

I'm also going to email EF - regarding the P6 issue. I have my doubts about it being a Poser/Shade thing since the SDK went to E-ON. Just my worthless 0 cents. The only thing that really changed in P6 was the .dyn(dynamics).

What happens if you point C5P(beta) or C4P to the Poser6 .exe......does it just fail or what. The reason I ask, was I had P6 before E-ON got the SDK & I pointed Vue to the P6.exe(when Vue asked for the P5 .exe) & I saw no difference & had no problems(I don't use P6 native items). Just curious :)

Message edited on: 10/27/2005 20:23

dlk30341 I don't really use Poser , I have Poser 3 that I use for my Architectural renderings but I haven't upgrade to the later versions. From what I understand if you have poser 5 on your machine , then Transposer2 that comes with C5pro will work with Poser6 . Hopefully one of the poser/Carrara users will answer, I think this could be answered at the top of this loooonnnng thread too.

C(P)4 with Transposer needed Poser 4, 5 installed. C(P)4 with Transposer 2 needed Poser 4, 5 installed, too. I'm using CP5 Beta. It asks me where Poser 5 is installed if I import with included Transposer 2. If I import Poser 5 files in native format into CP5 Beta, I don't need Poser 5 installed. No mention of Poser 6 in import options.

dlk30341 I'm not sure what your asking about C5 and P6, I've mostly used Carrara as a modeler and I'm only exploring the Poser stuff now.. I've very successfully imported Poser figures (Aiko, M3 and V3) into C5 and been able to pose them reasonably well with the C5 bones coversions using the native importer (Not Transposer yet). I've also been able to import P6 scenes into C5 and rendered them. I had 3 slight issues... One, the clothing I imported on V3 Girl Next Door 2 came into C5 as a solid color rather than the see thru it was in Poser, I'm not up to speed enough yet, so I couldn't correct that problem, but I'm sure it's on my learning curve not the programs. The second issue wasn that on opening the scene in C5, C5 asked for me to locate a file, but didn't indicate what file to locate (or even what type of file to locate) I finally realized it was looking for the .OBJ file for the tranmapped hair in the scene. Once I realized that and located the proper file everything worked well. The third issue is another shading problem, so, agin it's probaly on me to figure out what I'm doing wrong. GND2 uses Blackhearted's own eye figures and shaders. In C5 the eye shaders dont show up right and the eyes look strange. I've attached a fast render to show what I mean. If there are any tests I can try let me know, as I said my experience level is low in this area but I'll try.. mike

fwiw... c3, c4 did and I assume c5 does have symmetry.. and you can get this into the vertex modeller..but its not a set of plain steps to get it to do so. I built a crocodile in carrara 4's vertex modeler (yes it is the crocodile that I have in the marketplace here..and it is the best seller..outside of the bryce 5.5 tute dvd..that I have made) and I used "symmetry" in carrara to do it. and for my initial impressions of c5... it ROCKS with a capital RRRRRR the particle engine alone opens up entirely new worlds (literally) to c5 users..again, not so obvious..but now entire wars can be fought with 3 models and NO keyframes!..very cool. Im pressing it beyond what any 'sane' person would probably do..but no-one said I was sane..lol. It is possible to crash..and some things are a bit buggy, but its a beta and it is a "serious" upgrade. I also used to be confused as an employee of Eovia..which I am not. If they made a piece of crap, Id say so. But as of yet..from the creation of amapi designer forward, every release of every program they have set forward has been something of which they should be proud. my .02 :) BT

Lots of great stuff said here about C5, I think I will upgrade in a couple of weeks this will be the 4th version on my computer in 1 year. It looks like I may be able to get rid of Vue 5 I, Has anyone had a chance to try some bone animations with C5 yet? is it any better also the subsurface scattering what kind of control do you have, is it comparable to translucent pro for cinema 4d?

small example of the particle generator ...having WAYYYY TOO MUCH FUN! no one in their right mind would have attempted this (never said I was in my right mind..heh) ..but just for the heck of it I tried it. The model is a 50000 poly model made in Amapi of a p41 fighter...there are over 50000 of these in the entire scene..but from this view there is only a portion visible. all created with NO keyframes, one plane and one particle generator. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Carrara/files/test1.jpg it took a while to calculate, but not so long to render once calculated. anyhow, the possibilities are pretty much endless...parenting particle generators could allow you to fire a lot of missiles from one simple animation...so thatd be 1 plane, 1 missile and 2 particle generators. Imagine making a particle generator a child of the missile to generate sparks, smoke, or whatever. as I said... endless... :) BT

It all looks good to me. I think Eovia is moving forward in a great way. As far as Poser 6 import goes, well, it would be nice but what I'd really like to see just as much is DAZ Studio import. Seems like DAZ and Eovia already have somewhat of a business relationship. Daz studio is an up-and-comer, powerful and besides, it's free.

I wouldn't want to be on the other end of that :)

trav...sounds like old mapping and trans problems. Sorry to hear that...altho since you can pose in c5 it should not be as bad. Here is what to try. 2 things. 1. Just choose the transmap directly in alpha channel...the quick way. Or for some more control try basic variations of this. In the tree choose multichannel mixer then you have source 1(select multichannel) and 2 (select multichannel).In source 1 make sure transparency is set to none. In source 2 make sure transparency is 100% all else to none. In blender at the end set to texture map invert color then choose the transmap. The eyes are kinda the same problem...make sure to get all the parts of the eye set with the trans right.

Message edited on: 10/27/2005 23:41

robertzavala, It does supposedly do direct import, bones and all of daz characters. Only program I know that does. I don't know how well tho. The texture issues that trav was having were a bit disconcerting. But I don't know details. D|S isn't there yet, but if anything like the dynamic hair or cloth get in there...will be cool. Their sdk will be forthcoming. Other dynamics really would be great tho...was hoping for something there...that's why I asked about animation. The graphing should help. Blender's fluid dynamics should be amazing when it comes out. Would be nice to see more support commercially of some of blenders things.

ren mem, robertzavala, the bones import seems to be excellent. THe Operation of the figure is superior to Poser in some ways. However fine Posing suffers a bit. Again this may just be my own learning curve in switching between Posere and Carrara. I'm still working on it. I still haven't caught on to the shader trick. Selecting the garment and "playing" with the various shader elements HAS NOT resulted in any change to the garment texture?!.. I can't even get the basic color to change... So, it's time to hit the manual and see if I can figure it out from there. Tomorrow I plan to sit down and try some serious modeling in the VR. I've been playing a round a lot just to try all the new toys. I have a couple of projects that I've had on the back burner and I'm going to try one of them in the beta. Won't kill me if it doesn't work but it'll givem me a chance to try out some things. mike

"I am not in favor using with import and export feature to work with application to application. Didnt you know that it is really pain for modeling users." One advantage that you may be overlooking is something I find myself doing more and more lately. With Hexagon as my modeler I can keep right on modeling while Carrara is rendering in the background. Without an external modeler the Carrara render times become wasted (3D) time. I was rendering a pretty good sized particle simulation with several hundred poser figures running around while working on a model in Hexagon today. My pc is not that new (AMD 2800 -w- 1gig) but Hexagon did not seem to slow down much at all, with Carrara grabbing cpu cycles in the background. wayne k guam usa

Missed one point in my post: You can save your file in Carrara and render it through the batch renderer. Then you can open a second file and work on it, but it is pretty slow if Carrara is doing any heavy lifting with calculating GI, physics etc... whk

Just tried to import a daz file into C4, no luck. It doesn't recognize it. You can bring in an obj. in with the usual texture problems

Hi Trav, I'm no Poser expert, but this might be useful to you: have you checked to see if the texture (in Poser) is a bitmap or not? If it's not you'll have to see how it was made and then rebuild something similar in carrara. Otherwise the textures aren't loading in correctly - I just load everything in myself anyway. Also, is the clothing one object or a group? If its a group you'll need to texture each piece separately - not a problem with C5's new copy & paste options in the texture room (finally!) I have a question: has anyone managed to use SSS with a Poser character? And what settings have you used? This is one thing I haven't been able to use succesfully. The rest of the new features work fine, but so far rendering out Miki (EFrontier) has crashed/restarted my system everytime. Thanks

OK, a little annoyance in C5, that I'd like to check with others before reporting it. While trying to do a it of modeling in the Vertex modeller I noticed that I can't seem to drag the Drawing Plane as in C4. I tried Ctrl+click(drag), Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Click(drag), Alt+Click(drag), and Ctrl+Alt+Click(drag) and none seem to work. The drawing plan WILL move to a selected edge using Ctrl+Click on the edge. Has this been noticed by anyone else? mike

Trav, I can't move the vm's working box like in c4 either but I didn't use it that much. I would post this as a bug

I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my past question :( Regarding Poser6: When C5P asks for the P5 exe and you point it to the Poser6.exe....what happens? Does it crash? Or does it just toodle on along. With Vue, before P6 was implemented & the options were only P4 or P5.exe...I pointed it to P6 .exe & nothing happened, it just accepted it. Does that make sense? I hope I asked better, I feel like I'm being pest :( and belaboring this, because of my ignorance of this program. Thanks again :) I do appreciate any information :)

robertzvala, daz import w/ bones is for C5 not C4. dlk30341,there are people using p6 who have previous versions on their system. I would check the other threads in this forum for that (i.e. transposer2 or poser6 info), as they said there would be no change in that. No radiosity tho, right?

TransPoser 1 & 2 both choke if you point them at Poser 6. It wants to see Poser 4 or 5 installed on your hard drive.

Thanks Shonner...that's exactly what I wanted to know :)

Poser 6 to Carrara 5: What about switching off the external binary morph and file compression options (Poser 6) in preferences? This enables Poser 5 to open Poser 6 scenes after a 'newer version detected' type message (minus any of the new shader features). As Carrara 5 can import Poser 5 scenes maybe that would work.

Poser 6 to Carrara 5, part 2: I just tried it - it sort of works: I saved a character from Poser 6 with the options I mentioned switched off, as a Poser scene (.pz3). It will OPEN (I haven't tried using IMPORT) in Carrara 5 using the native importer option, but some of the pose I used was missing (in the hands). Can someone who ONLY has Poser 6 try this and see if it works for them?

anastasis20, the V3 character I imported into C5 (native import not Transposer) seen up in post 120, was created in P6 and saved in an a .pz3 file. owever I do have P5 installed on my computer but I never pointed Carrara to the P5 runtime file and the scene file was saved on another portable hard drive for either P5 or P6. All of the "problems" I encountered importing it is mentioned up there. I saw no problem with the poses in the scene. mike

Anybody import from D|S ok? With the changes in material editor has this opened up more procedurals? Looks like the replicator performs well...how are the high polys rendering?

That's cool. It sounds like we're almost there with Poser 6 then. I posted what might be a solution for you earlier (post 132). It's still the only thing I can think of (bitmap vs Poser procedural textures). In my limited experience with this I tend to modify the basic bitmap textures in Photoshop & then set them up using Carrara only shader functions anyway. As Poser doesn't have any kind of texture baking & export options I've not really looked into it's texturing abilities. Also, if you haven't tried this, do a search on this forum for 'poser' - you'll find a lot of useful info on setting up poser hair and eyes (expanded versions of what ren_mem said earlier in post 126). Hope thats useful

Well, subsurface scattering is the only thing that would have justified me upgrading after the disapointing Carrara 4. But it turns out it's not really SSS, but rather more of a clever marketing "approximation". Displacement mapping we could already do with the Power Pack. What about Fresnel, I would have sworn that was already in C4!

petshoo...there are several plugins. One was for true fresnel the other fake fresnel.When the demo comes out you may want to try it, unless sss was your only interest. There is a lot of info not clear on what it really has or plans to have, yet. If you had to buy vue 5 infinite or c5pro full retail...It would be close they are both very on par...some features in vue not in c5pro or the reverse. Baking and radiosity for example...don't appear to be in c5pro. But Vue5 has poor modeling. Other things also. However, vue is probably due an update...not too long. Eovia has less confusing more affordable upgrade options and lets you update from 2 versions back at least. E-on does not give much of a break for upgrading unless you go infinite to infinite. If you miss a year...your history. I don't like that kind of attitude makes it TOO much all about the money...way too much of that going around on planet earth. If you spend that kind of money on a product...you should be remembered.

Message edited on: 10/29/2005 18:40

Just for the record. Carraras global Illumination is using much better than "radiosity" is base in Photon Mapping and that is much better than radiosity. Carrara 5 also has irradiance mapping with save all the lighting info of the file...this allow for very fast rendering of fly thru style animations. Ringo

I own Carrara 3 Studio and Vue5, as well as Lightwave, but that is another story. In my own experience Carrara is much quicker than Vue in most areas. Of course each serves a different purpose. I like Vue for what it does, but Carrara was already a sweet app, now it looks even better. From what I have seen so far of C5, it is a no brainer upgrade for me. I was a beta tester for C4, but I had to drop out of the beta program due to some things that were going on in my family life. After that I continued to use Lightwave, since I had used it for so long. However, I did use C3 for one job--it paid for itself on that one job. It will cost me $299 to get C5 Pro. $99 for the Standard. Pro has some features that Standard doesnt obviously. A lot of them I wont use, such as import/export. LW import is covered in standard. I prefer to model in Lightwave, although Hexagon now has my attention as well after using the demo. The important things missing in Standard appear to be the surface and edge selection in the modeler. However, if I get Hexagon as companion it will be $169. Hexagon plus Standard will be better for my needs than just having Pro and it will be cheaper that way. I am glad to see that they offer more than one version. I am also glad to see that they did not forget the previous users. I just fired up C3 again. I am still amazed at the render speed. For most of my work I would have been content with using Lightwave to model and C3 to render, but there was no reliable way to get the models in. Now, I am ready to get back into Carrara. Once again I figure even if I dont stick with it, one job will easily pay for the upgrade. Also, if I can get into Hexagon more, I may end up using it instead of Lightwave to model with. From what I have seen it is a powerful modeler. At the moment I am still using LW 7.5. To upgrade it would be $399. But I dont even come close to using all the features now. So I am holding off on that one. Instead I will just use C5 and Lightwave together and perhaps get Hexagon to fiddle with until I can get up to speed with it. I guess if you are a hobbyist the decision can be tougher. I am lucky enough to make money doing this. For me it is an absolute no brainer. I look forward to revisiting Carrara and implementing it more in my work. Good job Eovia!!

Just double check with Eovia what version of Lightwave will import into Carrara. Lightwave 6 seemed to work fine for me, but not newer Lightwave files.

I have the demo of C4Pro and it works fine with my LW7.5 files. Thanks for the headsup though!!

ren_mem, from what I've seen, e-on let you upgrade between versions for the difference in cost. Like if you got Esprit first, and then upgrade to Infinite, it basically costs you the difference between Esprit and Infinite. I find this to be quite fair. When C4Pro was released, all the guys that had purchased Transposer or Amapi basically lost their investment. Wouldn't call that fair... As far as I'm concerned, the only feature that would have convinced me to upgrade immediately would have been Subsurface Scattering. But it appears that C5 only offers absorbtion, and I was almost a victim of their clever marketing. I agree with you that Vue is probably due for another upgrade soon, as well as other apps. That's why I'll wait for the trial version of C5 before I take any decisions.

Yey.