Hi everyone,

This isn't a christmas present, it took this long to get it all together.

I've updated my website and packaged most of the plugins for Carrara that I worked on during this year.  They are all free or released as indefinite beta versions and anyone can use them in any project.  They are all going to remain free so long as the demand isn't too high !

Unfortunately only Windows versions are available for Carrara 4,5 & 6.  I've had one volunteer try to do the Mac builds so far but anyone who is willing and able is welcome to help.

The plugins are:

The MipMapper and AutoMipMapper - for removing moire patterns and twinklies
The Wheels Modifier - spins the wheels of a vehicle when its moved around the scene
Tracks and Chains - fully wraps and animates tank tracks
The Jiggle Deformer - fakes soft flesh dynamics
The Spring Primitive - correctly models and animates helical springs
The Belt Drive - wraps and builds the geometry for fan belts, drive belts etc
The Transforms Package - some time saving scene commands

Of course you can find out much more and download them from my website and I'll be adding more tutorials and updates soon.

Jeremy,
www.Sparrowhawke3D.com

Thanks Jeremy, These will be quite useful.
Where you ever able to get ahold of the free Camtasia for doing your video tutorials?

Yes Joe-B, thanks for the link.

Camtasia seems to work and I'm going to try recording a few video tutorials this weekend.

Thanks Jeremy, your plugin are great! Did yu plan to do a more pro version for the Jiggle? For me its the first softbody plugin and can have a bright future. i will waitfor avideo about how to use it. I get a little lost trying it.

Hey Jeremy,

 Just looked at your plugins , great looking stuff . I just downloaded a bunch of them, thanks for your hard work on them.

Mike

Great stuff, really. I like to experience new shaders, and using the MipMapper as Transparency channel I'm almost create some glacier shader. Need some improvement, but looks kinda cool:

Thanks for the plugins! ;-)

I want this shader!! hehehe
You are the guy Noviski! A great plugin and a great artist togheter!

Quote - I want this shader!! hehehe
You are the guy Noviski! A great plugin and a great artist togheter!

 
HEHEHE!!! Thanks, my friend. Don't worry, after the adjustments I'll post the shader at 3DBrasil forum. ;-)

Nice effect Noviski, 

I did write 2 spin-off plugins for myself to give the distance and acuteness/edge falloff as separate shaders that return a value.  Looks like you've used the closeness sub-channels as 1 and 0 values to achieve it. 

Should I release these as well ?  I think there are commercially available shaders for fake fresnel and one that does proximity already though. 

Quote - Nice effect Noviski, 

I did write 2 spin-off plugins for myself to give the distance and acuteness/edge falloff as separate shaders that return a value.  Looks like you've used the closeness sub-channels as 1 and 0 values to achieve it. 

Should I release these as well ?  I think there are commercially available shaders for fake fresnel and one that does proximity already though. 

 
Thank you, SparrowHawke. I'm trying the proximity effect of MipMapper at water shaders as well, maybe we can simulate the CP6 transparency on CP5. Free plugins are always welcome, and you have a lot of it. If you need a beta tester for your products, I'm totally at your service! :-)

I agree with Noviski, Lightwave get a big name after we could get many free or low price plugins to do things that it cant inside the box. I think that support for plugins is very low at this time so more is better even if its something that other can do.  I think the problem is the how tousethe plugins is a little poor, the comecial versions are low documented and not easy to use.

Thank you very much for these plug-ins Sparrowhawke! Animating mechanical linkages can be difficult in Carrara (or in other 3D apps) and these will come in handy, as will the MipMapper for an animation I've been planning. :-D

Looks good, I'll have another play with the wheels modifier for my ambulance later in the week

Thanks for the useful plug-ins.

Really useful plugins! It's a shame that you havent found the guy for OSX porting:-(

BTW,  good work!!

-TOXE

I am running Vista 64 I can't seem to get the plug-ins to show up in the modifyers tab. Are the plug-ins compatible with Vista?

mhscspo,

I have tried them with Vista but not specifically with Vista 64.

Have you installed and got any other 3rd party plugins to work ?

If you are new to Carrara make sure that you extract all of the files for the matching version into your CarraraExtensions folder.

Works fine in Vista 32. I have madea mistake my first time installing Carrara plugins, in Lightwave  the files with TXT extension are only for info about the plugin, but in Carrara they are needed tob e with the plugin and isnt info about the it, its part of the plugin.

Quote - Works fine in Vista 32. I have madea mistake my first time installing Carrara plugins, in Lightwave  the files with TXT extension are only for info about the plugin, but in Carrara they are needed tob e with the plugin and isnt info about the it, its part of the plugin.

Do yoi have Carrara Pro or standard? I also extracted the files to Carrara 5 Pro in Windows XP 64 and once  opened Carrara 5 it said "Extention "Tracks and Chains" is too recent.  It says the samething  for all of them. In Vista 64 Carrara 6 Pro it just show up at all, any ideas?

Too recent? maybe wrong version?

Quote - Too recent? maybe wrong version?

 I finally got it to work on my laptop using Windows XP Pro Media Center Carrara 6 Pro, This is really crazy!!

mhscspo,

Sorry you are still having trouble.   Delete my plugins from your Extensions folder if they are giving errors and you need to keep working.

If you extract the Carrara 6 versions into Carrara 5 you will get an "Extension X is too recent" error.  Put the C5 versions in C6 and you get an "extension X is too old" error.

The plugins will work for Carrara 6 Pro, regular or Express editions etc, there is no difference.

Make sure you have the latest 6.03 update for Carrara.  When I first tested my plugins in C6 they didnt show up.  A few reboots and reruns later they did - which was a bit mysterious.  If you have more than one of my plugins they will turn up in a Sparrowhawke3D sub-menu but if you only have one then they might not show up.

Check the compatiblity settings for the Carrara 6 application.  From the little I've seen of Vista it does have better backwards compatibility than XP.

However if Carrara 6 is working perfectly in Vista 64 and my plugins dont then it could be that I've got a compiler setting wrong for 64 bit compatibility.  I base the projects on the ones straight from the Carrara SDK though.**
**

Quote - mhscspo,

Sorry you are still having trouble.   Delete my plugins from your Extensions folder if they are giving errors and you need to keep working.

If you extract the Carrara 6 versions into Carrara 5 you will get an "Extension X is too recent" error.  Put the C5 versions in C6 and you get an "extension X is too old" error.

The plugins will work for Carrara 6 Pro, regular or Express editions etc, there is no difference.

Make sure you have the latest 6.03 update for Carrara.  When I first tested my plugins in C6 they didnt show up.  A few reboots and reruns later they did - which was a bit mysterious.  If you have more than one of my plugins they will turn up in a Sparrowhawke3D sub-menu but if you only have one then they might not show up.

Check the compatiblity settings for the Carrara 6 application.  From the little I've seen of Vista it does have better backwards compatibility than XP.

However if Carrara 6 is working perfectly in Vista 64 and my plugins dont then it could be that I've got a compiler setting wrong for 64 bit compatibility.  I base the projects on the ones straight from the Carrara SDK though.**
**

I finally got it installed, there is now a sub folder for Sparrowhawke, I placed the "Wheels and Track" plug-ins into the folder. I used the "wheels" plug-in and I am using the Humvee that you mentioned in the instructions and I am having a problem getting the wheels to spin following the instructions that you gave for that particular model, I noticed that some of the boxes were'nt checked, such as the one for "enable steering". What actually makes the wheels spin?

mhscspo,

You got it working for Vista 64 ?  If so what do you think was the problem (or mistake) and solution ?

For 'Wheels': so long as you type in the exact unique name of either the front or rear wheels and get the diameter correct then the wheels will spin when the vehicle ( which the modifier is applied to) is moved. 

If the Brake Lock or Disable Completely are checked (be careful with key frames) then the wheels wont spin.  An easy user mistake is to get the wheel names wrong.  I will be releasing an update for most of my plugins (in a few weeks) that adds selection dialogs to all of the C5/C6 versions.

There is a section in the manual that explains what each of the user interface options is for.

Follow the instructions for the Humvee to the letter.  If the facing axis and wheel overide axes arent correct then the constraints on the body parts will stop them from spinning.

Also an issue has come up with 'Wheels' that if anything in the scene uses a Carrara 'Spin' modifier then it kills my plugin.

.....stupid attachments.....

This is what my screen looks like when its setup.  The modifier is on the geometry because in C6 both the parent group and the bones wont allow for general modifiers.  Close and move the parent group of the vehicle around.

Quote - mhscspo,

You got it working for Vista 64 ?  If so what do you think was the problem (or mistake) and solution ?

For 'Wheels': so long as you type in the exact unique name of either the front or rear wheels and get the diameter correct then the wheels will spin when the vehicle ( which the modifier is applied to) is moved. 

If the Brake Lock or Disable Completely are checked (be careful with key frames) then the wheels wont spin.  An easy user mistake is to get the wheel names wrong.  I will be releasing an update for most of my plugins (in a few weeks) that adds selection dialogs to all of the C5/C6 versions.

There is a section in the manual that explains what each of the user interface options is for.

Follow the instructions for the Humvee to the letter.  If the facing axis and wheel overide axes arent correct then the constraints on the body parts will stop them from spinning.

Also an issue has come up with 'Wheels' that if anything in the scene uses a Carrara 'Spin' modifier then it kills my plugin.

Thanks for the info..Vista ultimate 64 is very funny to get things to install as opposed to XP32, Vista has a folder called virtual store and it placed your files into it, at one point there was a radio button on the tool bar when I clicked on the zip icon and Vistal automatically installed "wheels" and two others with no problem, I tried to install "jitter" and it finally installed after about a couple of restarts, this was done with just the regular zip installer.

I used the spring plug-in the other day, very easy to use and good results. Thanks.

I want to thank you again Sparrowhawke for your generosity! I downloaded all your plug-ins and I look forward to testing and using them. Cheers, Dan