JT,

Could you elaborate alittle more about using Carrara ERC? This is an interesting shading/lighting problem, I would love to know how to somethings like this up.

In theory, this effect could be achieved if the glow channel could be controlled by the invertef highlight appearance, correct? Or am I thinking about it in completely wrong terms?

Another option,perhaps, would be to have a sphere of lights hooked to the sun (parented to it) with negative ones around the sun and positive ones directly opposite the sun (2 half-sphere replicators with thicker distribution in dome centers). Then have lights in both spheres only affect the highlight of the light-on-earth shader (with shininess set to zero and highlight to something bright and light)... Would that work?

I am in a middle of a project and can't test my theory :(.

Great looking ship! I look forward to watching the project develop.

Thank you! I haven't gotten around to registering on your site yet. But I loke the content and that it is Carrara-based. I think it would be nice to feature your site in CarraraCafe, if it hasn't been done yet (I've been out of the loop lately, just coming back)

Thank you! Very interesting video and good advice.

I think your method is good. Visually it's not blue enough for me though. (More blue may not be more realistic, but is more cinematic, I believe) What's your ambient setting in the scene there? I would change the ambient to 60% dark midnight-sky-blue blue. I usually use it for daytime scenes, but it can work with nightitme too, and your lighting setup looks good for that, I think.

Thank you! That is useful to know.

Thank you, Mark.

The problem in my case is that my model is already UVmapped for most of the domains and it's much better than any projection Carrara can offer. However some domains could really use some fitting and when I use the FitUVs option those domains look great, while the well-mapped ones get messed up :(. Also, when FitUV's tries to fit all domains, it tries to also somewhat keep the relative scaling, and that is something I severely don't need in this case, therefore, I am looking for a piece of software which would let me fit the uvs to the working area without messing up other domains...

Would this be a useful feature to request from DAZ? It seems that the algorithm is already there, it would just need to be apllied to a subset of UV's....

Thank you!!!

I do hope that content creators use less labor intensive tools though :). I was not thinking of Poser compatibility when I was altering the item: I just needed those changes for my own use, but I thought it could be handy, so now I might end up doing some extra work :). If the original author of the model is interested, of course.

Since I changed the poly count, the base object I'd be using is my changed one, with new UVs and new poly count, so I hope it means I don't have to do anything else to the object (I have no idea what pasting a UV is), just load it in poser and load exported morphs objects, right?

So each morph needs to be exported as a separate OBJ? And the modified original too to have the new UV mapping and the altered geometry (optimized poly count)? Can I do anything to avoind creating 14 obj and sending them around? Is there any other format that Carrara exports, which can retain knowledge of morphs? FBX? Collada?

If individual OBJ files is the only option, can I reassemble it all back in Poser somehow? What would i need to do for that? (I have Poser 6, and, btw, I'm using C8.1Pro)

Since I only intend to give it to the original creator, the distribution restrictions do not apply, but it is a fair consideration. Thank you!

It does look very impressive. I'm very interested to know the simulation tuimes and  hair counts you've been using. And it would also be very interesting to learn what optimizations techniques you have come up with.

So far I've only been using dynamic hair as fur and as hairdos which I could shape by hand using the tools such as brush, length, curl and clump (without draping or simulating), and since I've used it in still images, it has worked OK for my purposes. But I would love to learn more about setting up proper simulations and using it as real dynamic hair.

I look forward to the progress of your project and hope you'll post more details about it. Great work so far.

Quote - Antaran,   Here is a screen shot of a Layer list shader. I started out with a Multichannel shader , then for step 1. I clicked the "+" at the bottom of the shader tree then chose Basic layer and edit this layer the way I want then change the opacity of this layer so the bottom layer shows through.  See the screencapture.  Hope this helps.

Thank you so much! I've never used this feature before and I've been missing out. It adds so many new possibilities and easy alteration options. It's one of those great things which, once you discover them, make you wonder how you've lived all this time without them.

I used to struggle with realistic looking polished wood, and turns out all I had to do was add this feature and use a glass shader at 50% opacity over any regular wood shader. Add brown color to the glass and you instantly get a realistic veneer finish. So beautifully simple. And you can swap out different wood shaders without needing to change all the relevant properties to get the necessary finish!

Seriously, I can't thank you enough for showing this to me. I think it's so far the strongest contestant for  my "Best Carrara Discovery of the Year" for 2011.

And I like your violin. There are some interesting polygons. I wonder how they came about. Also I'd be very curious to know how would something like this get full UV mapping?

Quote - Antaran,  Like your model so far. Here are my comments.

Thank you! All your comments are extremely helpful. Most are straight forward, but the shading/UV-related stuff I still have some questions about:

Quote - You don't have to UV Map it as it looks okay now, maybe add another "Basic Layer" on top of the handle in the Texture Room with an opacity of 50% or something . Layered shaders can add depth to your textures.

Could you tell me more about the layered shaders, please? Right now I am confused. Are you talking about a multi-channel mixer shader where one of the multi-channels is replaced with a basic layer (for color?) Or am I totally misunderstanding the concept?

Quote -   Here is a quick way to UV Map something in the VM room with multiple meshes.1.Shift + Select one "Edge" from each of you separate polymeshes in the vm room.

2.Dynamically extrude these edges , doesn't matter how much.

3.Ctrl+shift+w  and weld all the selected points together. You should be left with a single vertex.

4.Delete this Vertex.

 What we did here is connect all of our polymeshes into 1 polymesh but they are still separate polymeshes for selection purposes.

5.Now double click the entire polymesh ,click the UV icon in the VM room and choose Operations/Box/6 sided mapping.

Your whole object should be mapped although you could scale the UV's if you want.

  This is a very neat method of uniting the mesh parts for UV mapping. I'll definitely adopt it. It din't work very well for this particular model though. I UV-mapped the 3 main parts which might require complex shading. (It's the UV1 version on the server)

I wouldn't be able to tell people how I did it though... I just kept messing with it until my UV shader starrted to look somewhat right. Still not perfect.

Small correction: I'm not a guy :). Also I've changed the folder name to Antara, which is my proper name (extra N was tacked on to make the username unique).

Thank you! But this is actually just spheres and cylinders with various parts scaled to be smaller and bigger. I have no idea how I'm going to approach the pipe yet. I have to think about that one...

I've separate the object into groupable elements. And I also discovered that doing it after a single object is created together is easier than it would have been if I had to create and assemble the object fromparts from scratch. At least for me. And it is very simple to do with selection by shading domains, so I can be doing it going forward.

I still need help with the mapping, though. So if anyone can offer suggestions, I'd greatly appreciate them.

The new file with groupable elements is uploaded to the same folder.

I've uploaded my magnifying glass here:

http://ectrr.com/CCPWIP/Antara/

Please take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Since I personally prefer single objects (rather than groups) with easily selectable domains, I left it as a single object. But I am open to any improvement suggestions.

I've started on the maginifying glass today. The image is attached.

Now I have a few questions:

1. Housekeeping: Can we get a sticky thread for this? Either this one or a brand new one with a more specific title?

2. How and where do we upload the WIP files for others to look at?

3. Do I need to UV map this and how do I do this right?

Right now if I go into the UV map view, the thing looks scary. And I have no idea how to make any sense of it.

1. What about scale? Right now this thing is huge. Where do I scale (assembly room? modeling room?) it and how do I do it correctly for best usability?

2. This is a single vertex object with multiple sub-objects and shading domains. Is this the right way to do it or should I be separating all the internal objects into assembly-room objects and grouping them in the assembly room?

I am also using Carrara's smoothing. Is that a good thing to do or a bad practice? The model does look a bit different when smoothing is disabled. For example, the glass does not match the frame when smoothing is changed.

I'd like for someone here who is better experienced at modeling to take a look at the model itself and tell me what I can improve about it. Hence the question of how and where to upload it.

Well, one of the reasons I don't enter the contests here is the popular vote thing. Plus, the themes are rather bland and generic. Verging on the uninspiring. For contrast, look at the last Dystopia contest at DAZ -- they had much fewer prizes, but they had twice as many imaes as the blah "Holiday Dreams" contest here. I think an inspiring theme with a stylistic flavor was the key. Aery Soul had a very small forum (when they were still running it) and their prizes were also products, but they had a fantastic theme, advertised the contest here and at DAZ and had a lot of entries, even though many people had learned of their forum for the first time because of the contest and had to register there.

I would love some good Carrara contests. But I think the thing to do is to find a great theme and to advertise the contest throughout the community: DAZ forum, ask DAZ to feature it in their newsletter, here at the forum, maybe see if Renderosity can support it and promote it too. And I would do 2 categories: one for all users and one for new users of Carrara, so people who don't know Carrara yet would have an extra reason to check it out.

Another thing Carrara Cafe needs is good notification system. And a newsletter.

Oh, and that reminds me. Would you like to add more images to existing Showcase profiles?

By the way, did Mark refuse to participate? He is one of the most prominent users of the software.

Also, what about Ben Craig? I think a lot of people would like to hear more about his use of Carrara and his workflow.