I haven't tried it personally yet. but
Mark posted something over here:

http://www.des-web.net/html/cbr_preview.html

Hello Plutom,

there are some nice tutorials and hints about that topic over at the DAZ Hexagon board.
The Carrara modeler is more or less a small version of the Hexagon tools, so many of
the Hexagon tutorials can be applied to Carrara too.

These are just a few:

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=38424&highlight=
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=90943
http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=101535

Hi Zgock,

I already feared you wouldn't port this great plug-in for C7 ;)
Thank you very much in advance.
I'll keep my fingers crossed everything will work fine!

Hi webdefender,

Poses from Poser work really well for me with NLA clips.

Are you working with stills or animated poses?
Maybe you can describe a bit what you are trying to do, so it's easier to find the problem.

Faba

Hi Krewz,

**1) put keyframes into an NLA clip
**
I think it's not possible to import new keyframes into an existing clip directly, but there is another method that makes it possible to merge 2 animations.

1. Convert both animations to NLA-Master-clips
2. Select the (not yet animated) animation group in which you want to merge the animations
3. Go to the NLA Tab in the properties section
4. Select Load Clip Data and pick the first clip
5. Select Load Clip Data again and pick the second clip
6. Select Create Master Clip and save your merged animation as a new master clip

This method has some flaws, but maybe it will help you.

2) detach skeleton from poser figure

Detaching the skeleton is more or less possible in general- but Carrara will give you some error messages when it is looking for the missing stuff you removed.

Personally I prefer to keep all poser information and either just hide the original mesh or even better: assign a dummy mesh (f.e. cube) in poser to the skeleton I want in Carrara. After importing I just hide the dummy there.
Using this method I can attach my mesh to the Poser skeleton in the same way like I use for a Carrara skeleton. Aditionally I have the benefit of keeping the ability to conform the skeleton and to use ERC.

Not sure if I am using this as it was intended - but at least it works :)

Hi Brian,

I am sure you already tried the usual things like

• reset your preferences
• checked if you have undocked your tool bars and arranged them somewhere else
• turned the tool bars off and back on

What happens when you change Carrara to Window Mode and then change the size of it's window to very small, so the tool bars are forced to be rearranged?

I guess the black line is the handle of the VM selection tool bar.
What happens when you drag it somewhere else?

Hi restif,

I'm not sure if I understand "deformation of the body part being smaller" right (obviously that's my poor english).
It sounds like your displacement is partially "carved" in the object instead of pushed out.

Possibly this might help you:
For displacement maps Carrara uses 50% grey as zero-level of the original surface.
Everything darker than 50% grey is lowered/ carved in the surface. Every lighter is raised/pushed out.

Your post helped me a lot for myself :)
I had the same issues with figures I created on my own, but because it was just tests I never put much effort in to find out why the joints are different in poser and carrara.
But your question made me rethink!

Hi livingos,

there is a script "UnHide Dials 1.03" from Dimension3D in the free stuff section here that hides/ unhides selected parameters. It worked for me for the translation dials when I tested it.
So possibly you won't have to edit the cr2 manually.

Hi livingos,

I am no expert in exchanging data between Poser and Carrara, but it seems you are right.
It seems to be the translation settings of the joints.

While poser is just using the rotation and ignoring the translation for IK-chains Carrara is using
the settings as written in the cr2-file. For example these settings in poser

will similar to this in Carrara:

I don't know how others are building their cr2-files (again I am no expert so for sure there are easier ways to do this), but different things worked for me:

**a)
**limit the max and the min of each translation dial that is affected to zero in poser - I don't know if there are tools or scripts for this. Carrara will read the constraint like this:

b)
open your cr2-file in a cr2 editor and change the visibility of the dials to invisible.
Carrara will read the invisible translation constraints as locked. I think this is how the
most characters are done too

c)
in case you don't want to work with poser anymore/ don't want to edit the cr2-file of course you can simply adjust the constraints in Carrara too.

Another more simple example, I'll upload the file, so you can see it on your own.

Basically it's 2 chains that are connected at the white and the black objects.
I'll name the objects with their colors, because I think it makes it easier to understand:

Orange = rotating disk with spin modifier
White = parented to orange

Green-Blue-Black = IK-chain
Green = Slider, free in the z-axis, locked in x and y-axis
Blue = parented to Green, Ball joint with only 1 free axis (y)
Black = parented to blue, tracking white - full constraint (it's just there to follow white)

Here is the file:
www.evajoe.homepage.t-online.de/mechanics2.rar

Edit: typo

Hi Tkane,

would something like this be enough? It's set without any plugin.
For a simple animation like this it's OK, but if you have something more complex
I think the setting will be much harder.

Being able to save animated shaders is only one benefit.
Using NLA enables you to rescale/ move/ loop the key frames without any problem.
You even combine several effects within your animation group, f.e.
animated shader glow + flickering light source, etc.

Again thanks for the tip, it is an incredible help when creating animations with carrara.

Hi Mark,

thank you for the reply :)
It worked pretty well, that was exactly what I was looking for.

Many thanks!

Thanks again.

I've tried both ways and learned some more things about the possibilities inside Carrara.
There are many abilities within Carrara I don't know yet, but I am looking forward to learn
more about them.