Turning off light through transparency might help, but that would mean rendering twice and compositing (no sky light, with transparency + sky light and transparency off)

No, full transparency does not work, unfortunately, as I am getting undesired effects with it.  Maybe it would work for extracting some individual passes.

I am getting a bit of the result that I want (not fully yet) with just the shadow catcher that is catching global illumination too. I am not using any lights at all and lighting the whole scene with just the shader glow and ambiance. No reflections, though :(.

But I am still getting 3D object that is way too sharp, saturated and clear compared to the image. Are there any compositing tricks for dealing with that?

Are G-Buffers the same as the multi-pass render passes or is that something else?

What I am trying to do is simple. I have a picture of a wall with windows, and I have a 3D glowing sign. What I am trying to do is to have the wall be a bit illuminated by the sign and for the windows to catch the reflection of it.

The wall is not the simple straight refular wall, it has a bit of scylpting and architectural embelishment. That's why I'd like to keep as much of the original image as possible, because I don't think I can adequately and accurately model it all. Plus, the image is of the place that I don't have access to (might not even exist anymore), so all I have to work with are just a few static images of it from a particular angle.

I'd like to make this into an animated video as the end result, with the sign elements flickering on and off, and for the light on the wall/windows to accurate reflect such interaction with the flickering lights.

Does this help to clarify the situation a bit?

Thank you for voting! :) Crossposted and votes counted.

I added the entry with some text adjustments to fit the format of the entry posts.

Please read it and let me know whether I need to change anything. Also my phone does not seem to be saving the full resolution image for me to upload back into the entry thread. I have reserved the spot with the preview and will try again when I get back to civilization. The image size I got was around 285kb. 

I found a spot with wi-fi where I can use my phone. It's beastly uncomfortable, but I will try to repost. Great work, Stanley!

Thank you, Stanley!

Headwax, I might not have access to a computer before deadline after I lean in 30 min. May I ask you to transfer Stanley's entry from this thread to the Entry thread in the challenge? There are earlier WIP's there in the WIP thread, so the WIP link requirement can be easily satisfied.

I look forward to it. :) Good luck!

I understand that you are frustrated. But I do hope you don't quit on the image. I thought Carrara 8.1 had draping. I haven't used it though. And it definitely has assembly room modelling with soft selection tools - you can fake-drape it over the bones :). Unlike actual bodies this doesn't need to be precise and it even doesn't need to follow the pose very closely, so it's a good situation for fake-draping.

I am still using Carrara 8.1, because it fits all of my needs. And the image is about your art, not DAZ. The challenge is also not about DAZ, it's about Carrara, which even at version 8.1 is a very cool piece of software :).

The WIP looks great!

If your tweaks will include morphing or modifying the content, and if your plants are surface-replicated, you might still qualify for the 3-item requirement. Also, weren't you draping something over the skeleton? The drping definitely qualifies as a modified item in Carrara.

If you finish it on time, I will post this image for you in the WIP thread and I will enter your final image into the challenge.

If you are open to suggestions, I'd recommend unconforming the boots and posing them a bit off the figure, because the skeleton would not hold them so straight up as flesh would, so it's an easy way to suggest the decomposed skeleton without draping things. And you could also pose the conforming figures instead of actually conforming them and then dial up some scaling and morphs to shuggest it being squished in some places and sting hanging on to bones in others. You can also morph those a bit (and qualify for the 3-tem rule!) :).

I look forward to seeing this finished!

I agree. I've always gotten quick and excellent support from Eric, and I love his plug-ins, even though I don't use even 5%of their capabilities and keep discovering more and more interesting features and uses. 

I hope he continues to create plug-ins for Carrara.

Jess, thank you! :) I was getting to my own boiling point with all the stuff I was reading in the forums, but now that I've read your answer, I see that somebody else has said what I was feeling, so now I don't have to :).

And I agree with you, jt411! We should get more people to discover and use Carrara. I usually try to brag about it whenever I find people who'd listen :). But I'm not sure my art is good enough to do it justice, so I may not be the most convincing person to do it :(...

martial, please either try it again, or send DAZ sales support a ticket with the order number of your Carrara 8 purchase.

I had the same problem initially, and then the cart got corrected for me. I didn't even have to send my request to DAZ. But other people have sent them sales tickets and got their discount properly applied. I hope this helps.

As far as I know, the procedure hasn't changed. I don't know about 8.5, though, as I hadn't tried it.

If you are trying to add a morphs to a rigged poser-intended figure, though, then it might be the case that there is no way to do it. What I founf is that the rigged poser content needs to have a pre-defined morph area, to which you would be able to add new morphs, before a morph target can be created. If the content didn't come with morph areas, there is no way to create a new morph area and add a target to it.

However, if you have something like V4, or any content item that already has morohing areas, then you can navigate to the morph area of interest (say, in V4 -> "head"), create a morph target there, then navigate to the area again from the menu of existing morphing areas and you will see your newly created target there. You can now select and edit it to create a new morph.

Does this help?

Thank you, lsrgroup, Mark and Chris for the suggestions. I'll check out all 3 to see what fits best.

And thank you for listing things to look out for! I have to sit and think what future steps I need to consider even before starting.