hello all,

i'm considering putting together some model and shader packages for the carrara cd that kixum manages as well as for my store and free area.

i was wondering if those of you who have already put together such packages could share some advice with me as to what file formats (other than carrara, of course) are good to use and how best to package (stuff / zip) the files for electronic distribution through renderosity for both the mac and pc. (i work on a mac)

i model everything for my scenes in carrara, so i'm a neophyte when it comes to importing/exporting files and objects in 3D.
(just so you know how much explaining you'll have to do in this area.)

thanks so much for your advice and help...

also, if people have any suggestions or requests for the types of objects and shaders they would like to see, i welcome the input.

thanks,
-scott

If you got the last version of the magazine, there was a whole article in there on this subject. Seems to me that a lot of people have mentioned plants. I happen to be in a plant phase at the moment so I'm definitely going to be adding some of those (maybe even a frog if I can get it done in some decent order). -Kix

hi kix, what magazine? -scott

Hey. Well since you work on a Mac you know about stuffit files. That is the mac standard for compression and packaging. On the PC side though, they prefer Zip files. No biggie though because if you own Stuffit Deluxe v 6.0 or newer, you have a program called drop Zip that will make a Zip file. Though these days it doesnt matter as as the Stuffit expander installed on all mac computers also handles zip files. So if you package your models or textures in Zip files you are covered in both cases.

hmm, stuffit deluxe costs money, right? i suffer from cheap-bastard syndrome. looks like i might have to suck up and deal on this one. thanks for the info. i'm still interested in knowing about tips and tricks pertaining to the actual file and object coming out of carrara... -scott

Since you are preparing your files on a Mac, there is nothing to do but save the files and compress them in a .exe or zip for the PC and a .sit, .sea or .zip for the Mac. For those folks creating shaders on the PC, there needs to be a conversion done of the .cbr file that adds a resource fork to the file which enables it to be seen by the Mac platform. The object/geometry files do not need this conversion though.

"the magazine" refers to the Renderosity magazine. Mark brings up an excellent point. That's why all the shaders on the resource CD are saved as .car files. The shader is applied to a sphere in the file. -Kix

Yes the shaders need to be "typed" on a mac so that they can be seen by Carrara. There is a simple program that does this, you simply drop a file onto it and select the file type and creator code. I could also create a simple applescript droplet or a Mac OS9 and X program that would allow you to drop multiple files on it and convert them to the mac format.... I think I will. PAGZone

To change the PC shader to a MAC shader (for Mac users): Drag the shader file onto ResEdit then "Get Info" for the file & click OK when the pop-up window asks if you want to add a resource fork. Then change the "creator" type to CRRA and change the File type to CBRF. Save the change & you'r in business. Or, copy this AppelScript into a new script (launch Script Editor & just paste it in). Then save as a script application. Then just drag your shaders onto the script, no muss, no fuss. on open the_files repeat with a_file in the_files set item_info to info for a_file if not folder of item_info then tell application "Finder" set the creator type of a_file to "CRRA" set the file type of a_file to "CBRF" end tell end if end repeat end open

thanks for all of the helpful replies. hopefully i can get some stuff together soon. -scott