Thanks a lot, 50parsecs! I downloaded the program and will try it out. I'll come back with more questions if I get stuck.

you might try http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/

They have a non-commercial only clause, but some authors do specify that commercial use is OK with special credits, conditions, etc.

Quote -  Download the attached file and then change the .txt suffix to .zip and decompress the file. Have fun!

Thank you, Mark!

I did point it in the wrong direction in my scene and that's why it didn't work. I see in your scene (it did ask for kitchen HDRI when I was loading it, but its lack does not seem to be making a difference) that the true shadows are still black, so it should be a matter of compensating the most shadowed area of interest  with the spot's direction. Is that the right idea?

I look forward to your tutorial in 3D World. I've been following the other thread with your WIP and I'll be very curious to look under the hood of it.

General lighting tricks are useful and important, but since every application has its own quirks and limitations especially where lighting is concerned, Carrara-specific lighting tips are especially valuable to me. So thank you again for the tip and for making the time to make a sample scene and upload it!

Please let us know whether your products will be available elsewhere. I still have a few in my wishlist and I was really looking forward to getting them.

Sorry, I must be extra dumb today, because I don't think I am getting this right. I tried it and I still get black shadows. And I get blue highlights from the spot. I can get rid of them by excluding an object from the spot's influence, but the black shadows are still there... Am I pointing the spot from a wrong angle?

Image attached shows the version with the sphere excluded from the blue light.

:blushing: Sorry, I am extra dumb today!:blushing: Time to go get coffee or something.:blushing: Forgot to say thank you for the tip! :) Hope I can get it right...

Wow, Mark! This is beautiful!

How did you get your shadows to be blue? Negative lights?

Look at the leaf shader. You must have green in the Translucency channel. Change the Translucency to either black or a much darker (less translucency effect) or a much less saturated(if you don't want the shadows as black) color.

Hope this helps.

Very nice. Thank you!

With plants there are 2 ways:

You can either change the height of the plant in the plant editor (select the plant you placed in the scene, click on the wrench in the top right corner and it will take to the plant editor, where you can change "Tree Size" in the "General" section) or you can scale the plant (and most other objects) using the Motion Tab in the assembly room -- that the default room (hand symbol) where you add and pose your objects (select the object you wish to scale, and click on the Motion Tab in the properties panel where you see "General:Motion:Modifiers:Shading:Effects" tabs; Transforms section of the Motion tab has 3 sections: Position in scene space, Rotation around Hot Point and Scale -- you can alter the size in the scale section).

The same scaling can also be done using either the universal manipulator -- looks like a little Saturn in the left hand side vertical tool bar, or the Scaling tool -- looks like 2 arrow-heads pointing in opposite directions, same tool bar. Since this is essentially same as the Motion tab scaling, I am not listing it as a separate way to change the size.

Depending on the scale of your scene, you might have to make the tree much bigger.

Also, look at the HP(hot point) location vs. object location. You can click HP->Obj in the Motion tab to bring hot point to the object if it got separated from the tree itself at some point.

http://www.vtc.com/products/Carrara-7-Pro-Tutorials.htm

The free ones are the interface introduction ones, so they should give you what you need.

To my knowledge, absolutely the best series of tutorials for Carrara is done by Mark Bremmer (he is the moderator here) and is available on VTC. The tutorials have not been updated to C8 yet, but if you are new to Carrara, C7 tutorials should have plenty of information to get you started. You can get a monthly membership to view the tutorials on VTC, and they have some introductory chapters available to watch for free, so you can see if you like the style.

I bought Mark's C6 tutorials back when C7 wasn't available yet, and I don't know what I would've done without them. I am thinking I am due for the update when C8 ones come out, even though I've been using Carrara for a few years now.

(edited for minor spelling errors)

When the cursor is stuck on open hand, there is a workaround to get it working again: press space. Works well for me after streaming video causes the open hand to get stuck.

I don't know whether it will fix the was-just-left-minimized issue.

I had a couple of times when the menu options like save/open/close/etc. were grayed out and I could not save (using keyboard or anything else). So far it seems to have been just a couple of isolated incidents when my system was due for a reboot based on another app activity, but this could be a very serious issue if it comes back.

Quote - I am planning new plug-ins. Shader Ops 2 is in early an beta now. Now that the C8 conversion is behind me I'll finalize the Ground Control update that was in open beta and get back to Shader Ops 2.

Regards,

This is wonderful news! What are the new features planned for Shader Ops 2? I must be missing something, because I didn't find the beta for it, or a description page. 

Thank you so much for your work, Eric!

Thank you, Eric!

This was super-timely, and wonderful news!
Time to get rid of C7 :).

Are you planning any more plug-ins for Carrara in the future? or only updates to new versions for now?

Thank you for your great work!