good pointers Ringo, thanks indeed.

yeah it's not a cover-it-all solution. Mike's books are looking at a handful of commonly used tools. If you want to go indepth into these particular tools they're good tutorials and project leads. But there are sooooooo many things to do in Carrara, you'll always find something that will have to be covered elsewhere. I recommend the Lynda.com tutorials as a companion, from Jack Whitney, who incidentally wrote some chanpters (several) for the CS3 handbook and I guess for the C5 handbook too? just a guess, I haven't seen the C5 handbook yet). Doug Sahlin is another resource, he did the VTC tutorials for earlier versions, not sure if he's doing one for C5 but it's worth checking on VTC's list of Carrara material. I have links to those at thebest3d.com too. There is a surprisingly large and growing list of new tutorials in the eovia3d.net and eovia.com tutorials areas. I think it's gaining momentum, which is very encouraging sings of professionals coming on to Carrara. What's not to like? Check www.icebergthemovie.com - click 'Enter' and see a Carrara render of a boat on a desert.

Yeah AMapi is an interesting little beast. Not easy to tame and master but if you use both hands and get the feeling of holding it in the left while chiseling and trimming at it withbthe mouse in the right hand that is a promising start.

I ahve tons of links to old tutorials from the days of 4.15, 5.15 and 6.1 at http://www.thebest3d.com/amapi

The 6.1 version was free ohn some computer arts or 3dworld issue last year if I recall. along with Carrara 2.

Carrara 3 added radiosity/global illumination with hdri and caustics. Formerly $299 we sell the remaining boxes now at $49.95 and offer free shipping in the US. Shipping from California so possibly no sales tax for you if you're not in California.

There is, I believe, Amapi 5.15 on the CD of Carrara 3.

The Pro version is still at eovia for sale, the Designer (Amapi 7) version can be found at Purplus.com - they've replaced it pretty much with Hexagon for non-Nurbs modeling needs.

Message edited on: 02/26/2006 16:02

hm, or it was last year. I didn't check eactly the details. Seems to me 6.1 was out as a free download for a while, might have been that.

I have a bunch of copies of the older Carrara Studio 3 book. Free for the asking, you pay just shipping ($2 in the US approx. if choosing media mail, I recommend $4.05 for priority mail though if you're interested in reading it this year ) http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara/freeBook.html Yeah it's not a book to teach the basics. That came with the tutorials with the program. And the 600-page printed dead tree aka reference guide misnamed user guide. If you still are hanging on to your beloved MacOS 9 system (or even OS8) you'll be happy to know that there's a demo version of CS3 that works for OS8, 9 and even 10 to Tiger and Windows. Just in case you're curious. Oh and I read somewhere (eovia3d.dnet I think) that the march issue of 3DWorlds or Computer Arts magazine has Carrara 2 and Amapi 6.1 on the CD coming.) It's not the latest but still one of the greatest there was and for starving artists an interesting option. 6.1 was my alltime favorite.

Attached Link: Carrara Studio 3 at thebest3d.com

if you don't have C5 but wnat it whenever the next upgrade promo comes, and you don't have C4 or C3 either, consider getting CS3 first at $49.95 including free shipping in the US. from thebest3d of course. (shameless self promo)

if you know a more suitable thread by all means please forward the tute link to the proper place for more visibility. There are a number of wafflers from rosity. It's a shame there isn't a Dogwaffle forum here, or a forum on 2D tools like it where wafflers might hang out. Thanks.

those are great too, yes. not sure why he doesn't. I've seen some artefacts that opne might not want at times in a render (that was with CS3, maybe C5 has it fixed). Light cones from spot lights tend to disable anti-aliasing in CS3 for example (that's different from lens flares I know). Anyway, there are tons of types of lens flares. And sometimes it's nicer to have a non-flared 'nude' (aka bare) rendering and try various add-ons / post fx without having to re-render it all over. post work can be much faster. But I'm speaking for myself. Not sure what BT's plans are in this instance. There are some Nova effects in here too: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/tuts/backgrounds Thing is if you find a lens flare is too intense, 3 hours after doing the 3D rendering, do you want to re-render it? A small preview window can not show everything there is to see in the final render. Dogwaffle for example has a tool called 'Fade last action' in the top of the Filter menu, or as a middle-click-drag on the undo button. It let's you reduce the intensity of the most recent tool's action, a bit like an interactive undo that lets you fade from between 100% down to 0% seamlessly until you get it exactly right.

Attached Link: Cybersign's Dogwaffle doodles

the predecessor to Carrara, RayDream, had easily 300,000 or 400,000 official users and 1 million cracks during its height of RayDream Stdui 5 and 5.5. Infini-D had about 60 - 80 thousand. It seems logical that eventually a great number of these will flock to the successor of both, and with the fantastic new features of Carrara 5 there are also new professionals turning heads and coming to join the community of Carrara users. Take an example: Martin Duerr at www.cybersign.de - he's a consultant for Maya and resells Cinema too and Animanum and alias sketch (and Dogwaffle ;-) - he told me he LOVES Carrara. Hearing that from someone who has learned the big guns and makes a living on it is, to me, monumental. Then again, he also told me that of all the 2D paint tools he's tried, and he 's tried them all, he prefers Dogwaffle ;-) by-the-way, Did you guys see the review in 3D Worlds magazine #74 ?

Attached Link: www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/bryce

already on it. but I have to wait until tomorrow. Got my daughter's soccer banquet tonight. check rochr's Bryce transformation in the meantime: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/bryce there is a simple lens flare and a Aura/GHalo tool in the Linear tool (defaults to straight lines)- also does linear alpha fader and other variants, lightning, etc... you prolly have a really old version look around in www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/art and www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/tuts to see what's possible with the newer versions 2.1, 3.2, 3.5... Anyway, I'll experiment with your image.

Attached Link: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/art/animations/jackwhitney/index.html

if you want to make it look more realistic with postwork: - lights in dark-green blueish tint - lots of ambient % light and soft shadows or GI and indirect lighting since there's not much direct light down there - if on PC, use Dogwaffle to add 'bubbles' - also with Dogwaffle, add light rays from above (mystic vision, kind of light diffusion + zoom blur) - add light diffusion filter - add wave distortion especially if there's bubbles and lots of rising water turbulence. samples of such postwork over Carrara anims: http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/art/animations/jackwhitney/index.html

demo version of Quidam is coming soon.

man you gotta try that in Dogwaffle ;-) I mean, it's been developed by a Hollywood special fx artist for exactly that need he has himself. You can create a variety of fx brushes with animated strokes and halos and rings. There's also a simple and a more sophisticated lens flare engine. But hey, you've got A.E. so you're all set LOL

Attached Link: http://thebest3d.com/amapi

wait, you're having trouble with Amapi? Which version? you're aware of the good ole' tutorials I have right? http://www.thebest3d.com/amapi But they're mostly on versions 4, 5 and 6. If you have version 7 look for BT's tutorials on Amapi Designer . One rule of thumb: use both hands. Keep one hand on the arrow keys at all times and the other on the mouse. You want to develop the sense of holding the object in the left hand while modeling and cutting away with tools you grab with the right hand. I'm in San Diego, I do offer private training or seminars for small groups.

Attached Link: Pierre Bretagnolle's prior personal portfolio (lot's of Amapi)

By-the-0way, for Amapi users here: The CEO of n-sided is none other than Pierre Bretagnolle. I call him the grandmaster of Amapi. Quidam is not necessarily an alternative to Poser - in some ways it is, because it has tools for posing and articulating/rigging with bones wheh you export, complete with textures, normal maps etc... But it really has much more emphasis on the modeling. You can start from existing free models that you download from their site or elsewhere or you can start from scratch and make new models. Some will say that it's what could have become of Amapi if it had gotten a touch of posing and rigging. others will find new ideas of the user interface not found in either. What's for sure IMHO is that having Pierre drive this will make it a tool for the artists by the artist.