I'm getting used to MSVC. It does have some oddly placed things but all in all, it is probably the best dev environment that I've ever used. I'm a 'C' coder by trade and if you look at the source of my plugin's, a lot looks like plain 'C' because that's the way I code. C++ is only there for the COM part of the plugin. Otherwise I don't really use it. I would say the MSVC and C++ end of things is easier than the SDK end of things. The yahoo SDK forum may forgive the new coder's questions, Everyone has to start somewhere and eagerness to make new plugins is probably greatly appreaciated. :) But whatever. I'll probalby end up perusing whatever is going to be done.

Attached Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carrarastudiopugins/

I forgot to mention the other plugin list that is there to discuss ideas and wants for future plugins, but as I said it's been a ghost town in there. I think Eovia makes note of the SDK forum when you start inquiring about the SDK from their web site. I could be wrong though. It's been a while since I dl'ed the SDK. There's a lot that is exposed to the SDK plugin maker and there are many areas that the plugin maker can play around in. But initial ramp up to getting something made is pretty steep. I've only hacked into making 'scene' commands and they aren't perfect. Doc says one thing, I try it, Later I find out that it's not doable. Doc says "ZOT!" a lot. Meaning they didn't finish that area up. Making a plugin is not that easy and lately I'm finding, it's a lot of effort but not always that fun.

Attached Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carraraSDK/

SDk yahoogroup link attached.

One thing that bothers me is a fragmentation of the community. It's great there are so much interest in the product and all but is it really required to have N forums to discuss it?

Carrara alone has a forum at...
2 at yahoogroups
3DXtract
VisualDS
Renderosity
3DCommune
(did I miss anyone?)
Do we need more?

Carrara has an SDK list on Yahoo which is the definitive place if you want information as eovia personel contribute here. There is also another group in yahoo for the discussion of new plugin ideas etc but it's sort of languishing through inactivity. There is also a start up SDK forum at 3DXtract. So do we need yet another place? How many do I need to sift through in order to get what I need?

[Whining off]

Message edited on: 05/20/2004 13:07

I don't know if it's what you are looking for but I wrote a plugin for duplicating objects in Carrara. I've never used Bryce so I don't know how differen it is. The plugin can be found here...

http://www3.telus.net/robbert/zekaric/devWork/carraraPlugindoc/zdup.html

Otherwise it's a matter of copy, paste, drag, and paste again to get similar offsets as the previous paste. Carrara doesn't have a duplicate other than that.

Oh nooo!!! Over at 3dcommune we have a group project doing a toilet scene as well. :) Not as modern as this though but anyway. Are you looking to do an IRTC entry as well? Seems like Carrara is just going to the crappers lately. ;) Robbert

Just out of curiousity. Are the Theatre wide screens the same rectangle aspect as a Cinema screen or is the Cinema wider still? Is 16X9 the standard Theatre wide screen size?

Doh. I was going to put in some links but forgot.

gamedev is a good place to start.

<www.flipcode.com>, also has some decent articles and tips and tricks.

<www.makegames.com>, although slightly self promotional for 'fastgraph' graphics library which on it's own is also a good graphics library albeit only for windows but the information there is generic enough for starters.

<www.gameprogrammer.com>, is mainly a mailing list for game programming. Not too shabby but hasn't been completely useful yet for me. Another resource couldn't help.

Hrm. Game making is a big topic. Director/flash or whatever from Macromedia are simple for small projects but a real nightmare (from experience with Director 7) for larger projects. I hope I'm wrong with their later offerings but from what I know, I dread the day I have to work with their products again. I have never played with Dark Basic or any other basic languages. For starters they may be ok. Basic, Python and Java are good languages for most games. I wouldn't try to code a Quake clone in one though. Not impossible but I wouldn't expect the performance from it. Side scrollers and simpler puzzle games are simple enough for these languages. If he wants even more down to the metal then pick up a good compiler, I'd suggest MSVC++ (standard edition .net is fine and cheap, it just doesn't come with optimizing compiler.) as most free libs out there target this compiler first for the windows platform. There are free C/C++ compilers but you'll be in for some headaches working with them if you are just starting out. You'll be in for some headaches and frustrations anyway because programming is generally a frustrating past time. I hope your nephew is patient. ;) For simple library for graphics I would start with libSDL (www.libsdl.org). It's simpler to figure out initially than DirectX and OpenGL setup is trivial. It limits to only one window in a windowing environment but most games don't need more. Lots of support libs as well. OpenGL and SDL are levels simpler to set up and get going than DirectX. There are other libs but for starters that will keep him busy for a few years. :) Poor guy.

Transparency in Carrara is an odd beast. The above can be changed to not be a multichannel mixer. Using just 'multi-channel' - 'color' is the texturemap of the butterfly - 'transparency' is the texturemap of the mask. For this to work properly though the places where they are completely transparent has to be black in BOTH the color and transparency map. This is what I find truely messed up with Carrara as you can't do the following. - 'color' completely white. - 'transparency' is a noise ranging from black to white. I was trying this to simulate clouds but just wouldn't work. You'd have to copy the same noise pattern in the transparency to the color channel to get complete transparency. Problem is that the color no longer is a pure white but shades of gray. Not really what I hoped for. Although seeing the above butterfly I might try again but this time using mutichannel mixer. Transparency shouldn't be this involved though IMO. :/ I asked what the incantations were happening under the hood that this was the case but Eovia never got back to me on that. Anyway, enough of my little rant. :)

Have there been some refinementes in the Bones department in C3? I have C3 (beta at any rate at the moment) but I haven't gotten around to playing with the bone project that I was having a hell of a time with in C2. I'm hoping they have fixed some of the bugs that I kept hitting over and over and over and... in C2 that pretty much annoyed me enough to not use it. From the release it doesn't look like they've done anything in animation. I've heard there is a new plugin that works well with motion builder but it's still in alpha/beta and hasn't been released yet. But without the plugin's C isn't the greatest for character animation. I think C is still rather young in this area and will need a few more years before it'll satisfy the majority of the users working in this area.

Congrats Mmoir! Very nice pic.

I haven't really hit this case yet. If you have a sample and steps to reproduce, that will help. Do you have the latest patches attached? I'm not sure if that will help at all. What type of constraint are you using or applying? Possibly remove the constraint and reset the bone. Then reapply the constraint.

In order to use linkages you will need to build your charater in unique pieces. Modify the hotpoints for proper rotation etc. Not any more or less difficult than bones. The problem is that it's not a model that is a continuous mesh. Say, like Daz Victoria figure.

To animate Victoria in Carrara will require quite a bit of tweaking at the joints so that they deform properly. Not a simple task as far as I can see.

I bought C2 expressly for the purpose of character animation. The traps that I constantly fell into when working with them and the 'n' times I had to restart from the begining basically killed it for me. I'm hoping C3 will be a much better experience with these issue fixed up.

At any rate, I'd still be interested in any examples or tutorials about character animation in Carrara.

Not completely out of the question but just difficult to do. I am by no means an expert here with either character animation or Carrara but this is what my feeling is with using Carrara for this purpose. Others may have had more luck than I have.