I've been putting a lot of work into the site whenever I can get time - and at times when I should be asleep. I hope I'm making the navigation easier as I go. I've reorganized some of the topic to flow within the hierarchy of their categories in a more natural (I think?) manner and put some things into different categories when I thought it made more sense to do so. I don't think it'll mess with links to the individual pages. If it did, and I messed someone up because of it, I apologize.

DaVinci Resolve (Do it in Post > Editing Zone) now has the official Blackmagic Design training videos along with links to download them as well as the working files, and some of their other official videos. I wanted to get the ball rolling for how excited I am to be using this incredible (free - yet Hollywood movie-class) software. I'm working on some of my Hybrid tutorials (videos with support articles) for the Edit and Fusion pages in Resolve, but since I wanted to host these official training videos anyway, and I didn't want to wait until mine are done, I went ahead and gave the page a good start, I think.

Other additions:

Added Using Genesis in Carrara (with a link to Misty's awesome presets sold here)

Added Transferring Character Morphs via NLA

Added Hybrid aniMation and updated Animating a bit

Added aniMate 2, along with the awesome GoFigure tutorials and demonstrations, as well as JonnyBravo's tutorial for the aniBlock Importer for Carrara

Added a brief article on Carrara Cafe with a link to the Carrara 3D Expo magazines

Added a start to my new Inspiration page within the Gallery - currently featuring some video playlists I've made for my own animation/art inspiration

Created a new Home page (more brief, with collapsible text paragraphs) and changed the original to the new The Software page

...and made some other changes like making my wording a bit more clear, fixed a few typos, moved Downloads in to the Gallery... it's all meant to grow at a fairly steady pace now. I'm pretty excited about it.

What I'm not happy with is that I still haven't added any of the Renderosity material I've been working on. There's a lot! I have so much that I want to say "Right Now" but can only do so much. I've been considered Essential through this whole COVID 19 thing, and now with the protesting and rioting going on, everything is getting even more strange - taking my precious Carrara time away.

No matter what they through at me, I'll always get to my Carrara! Thank goodness for our wonderful Batch Queue Renderer!!!

Okay, let's try this video post thing:

Dammit!

ProPose001 posted at 8:52PM Fri, 05 June 2020 - #4390712

I see your DAZ store products are free now. A very generous contribution to the community, much appreciated. I already own them all, bought them when they were hot off the press. Some of your presets have become "default" start scenes for me, so they get used alot.

Thank you! Yes, it's been quite some time since they've become unavailable, so I was looking around for a host. The file sizes of Woodlands made it tough to find a home, but it's also one of my favorite 'goto' scenes, so I certainly didn't want to leave it out!

Google was kind enough to host them for me, so I get to offer them myself!

Thanks! :)

My pleasure - I hope you enjoy them ;)

Ooops. How do we post YouTubes?

https://youtu.be/GmsgEoWIXuM

Forgot to mention:

I was actually planning on putting them up in the Freebies store here, but the file sizes on some of them are too big.

I really didn't want to downsize them at all - I like having all of those preset, pre-built scenes available even though I think I (personally) start with the base scene more times than not.

Just a quick tip on the EnvironKits: Users wanted soft shadows on the Sun light. You'll get a LOT faster renders if you take soft shadows off (Effects tab). If I want to render even faster, I double-click the light dome replicator and change the minimum distance (left panel) from 280 to 780, bringing the light dome down from 88 lights to 11 or 12, then increase their brightness a touch. I do this easily because my characters all have their own light rig to help them Pop.

Cool, Thanks!

I've added a Videos gallery that's kinda cool, I think. So far just a stroll through some of my older favorites that I've made. I'll put the new instructional videos in their appropriate area.

Thanks Steve!

mosk posted at 10:59AM Mon, 25 May 2020 - #4390119

Hey Dartanbeck - have always appreciated the work you've put into helping other learn Carrara and its associated plugins. Looking forward to your new site.

Wow. I love it! Doing good for others Always feels good - even if we don't feel it right away

I especially love this image - the trigons lifting away....

A lot more will be added - and hopefully soon.

Cheers, Carrara users!

Dartanbeck Articles is a landing page with links to articles that I write for the site, since they get placed in various topics pages this gives them a bit of an index. The page also includes a few of my videos with brief descriptions

Carrara Plugins is still very new, but has a few hours of work into it already. Should be a nice stop for folks looking to upgrade Carrara

I have also included a Memorial to Cripeman, including links to all of his Carrara tutorials. I miss you, my friend!

Here are some support articles on the new site that spawned from the video:

Introducing Rosie 5 (article)

Making Rosie 5 (landing page)

Genesis Morph Reduction

Dynamic Hair

EYEdeas 3+

Millennium Teeth

I will be editing these articles in time. I want to support them with more images and videos.

Fantastic! Can't wait to try this! Kudos Misty! Please pardon my misspelled name. Mistakes like that actually cost money to correct over here! wtf?

Anyway... this is awesome!!!

Silene, are you having issues with support products? Here's the thing:

Do as Misty mentions with the blended weight thing, as she mentions on the previous page

Then save that result back into the library, with a new name, in the same structure so it's easily found in the same way the original item was

Now load that new item into Carrara for use on the new G3 for Carrara.

Example:

Let's change an imaginary coat

In Daz Studio Library, I find it under People > Genesis 3 Male > Clothing > Imaginary Coat

the coat is now in our library available for bringing into Daz Studio - so I load it in I now do the Blend Weights conversion

Now I save the coat back into the library, so during my save (as a figure support asset) a browse all the way to My Daz3d Library > People > Genesis 3 > Clothing > Imaginary Coat

Just to NOT overwrite the original, I call this one: "Coat4Carrara" or some other simple change so I can easily distinguish it

Now back in Carrara, I load in the Coat4Carrara, rather that the original Coat

Does that help?