wendyvainity posted at 3:36AM Fri, 15 November 2019 - #4369563

think he got banned from here actually

No, I didn't get banned. Only I reached the conclusion it is a community of 'artists' not worth talking to. How's that?

Because I am the only one who makes interesting posts here. When I don't post, nobody comes here to read.

Here is another very interesting example of IClone physics toolbox abilities.

As you can see, you can get some very realistic simulations in a low-cost animation 3D app, to easily spice-up your movies. See Link

This example shows another extremely powerful feature of IClone, i.e. its native support for Sketchup models. You create your model in (free) Sketchup, or download one from Google's 3D Warehouse, bring it seamlessly into IClone, and voila, you're all ready to go. Now how cool is that?

IClone also has a particularly well-crafted physics toolbox, that uses 2 separate physics engines, Bullet and NVidia Physx, provided that you have an NVidia graphics card. The features of the IClone physics toolbox are extensive and it would take too long to describe them all here, so I let you see for yourself. See this link and this link.

Also note that IClone's physics toolbox is a paid plugin.

To do character animations there are two ways to do it:

1. The wrong way, or the Carrara way, where the animated characters look like zombies pulled clumsily by strings. There are many examples of such animations, and I will not refer you to any link. I will let you do your own research.

2. The right way, or the IClone way, where characters are professionally animated through motion capture. Animations are fluid, natural and realistic. Here is a very fine example of professional, realistic character animation through IClone motion capture. See Link.

Cheetah3D is truly a great program.

First of all, the program gets updated on the average every other month. Some of the updates actually are more than just point releases and minor bug fixes. They contain some significant improvements and enhancements.

Where Cheetah3D shines is that it comes with 2 renderers. One ray-tracer, and the other is a super-fast path tracer using adaptive sampling techniques, for the fastest results. This is pro-level feature in a $99.- package.

Cheetah3D is a Mac only product. If you are a PC user, this thread is not for you. Stay out.

Cheetah3D has numerous features quite similar to Cinema4D. In a sense it can be considered as Cinema4D's little brother.

The FBX import of Daz/Poser models into Cheetash3D works flawlessly. In 1 situation I had to break down the model in 2 parts for it to import correctly.

Cheetah3D actually handles Daz/Poser contents far better than Carrara does. You don't need to spend days to adjust textures to make them look good, as is the case with Carrara. From this perspective, the overall cost of a project is always a lot less with Cheetah3D than with Carrara.

Below are 2 sample works that I did with Cheetah3D. These are only wips, and by no means represent what Cheetah3D can do, in terms of lighting abilities and rendering quality.

More on Cheetah3D later.

@ Wonga:

As I mentioned in several posts, I investigate features of different 3D apps as they relate to Carrara, and I post my findings here. There are plenty of excellent works done with IClone or Lightwave, for me to not need to make a point about their features and performances.

fantasy3d posted at 10:47PM Wed, 05 September 2018 - #4335615

dr_bernie posted at 2:06PM Sat, 01 September 2018 - #4335571

From an animation point of view, especially character animation, Carrara is so weak, and IClone is so strong, that if you use Carrara over IClone, well, sorry to tell you, but you just don't know what you are doing.

Interesting, but didn't you just decide to purchase, and start using Lightwave instead of Carrara? If you have truly started using Lightwave, why are you back here singing the virtues of iClone (and I do wonder, since a while back you indicated you were going to use Shade 3D instead of Carrara, then Lightwave ... what .... a week ago, now your promoting iClone)??

Funny that you tell anyone using Carrara for character animations that they don't know what they are doing. I would think if they are doing it successfully they would know quite well what they are doing. Maybe you could show us an animations with iClone, or Lightwave, or even Shade 3D, that you have done, so that we can better understand your real experience in this to better understand the value of your recommendations, not just that you have read it and looked at others works and think in therory it's a good idea (I've been involved in many instances where when theory makes it to reality, things just don't work as predicted).

I agree, iClone has turned into a great tool, and may be better than Carrara for the things it is designed to do, but to make a blanket statement about anyone using Carrara for character animation "you just don't know what you are doing" is, well ..... simply wrong on so many levels (not to mention a direct insult to Carrara animators).

Seriously, maybe you should focus your creative energy on learning Lightwave, or what ever your program of choice is, rather than continuing what seems to be a personal crusade to lure people away from Carrara. Here I thought you had found the perfect program for you, but maybe not?? I'm sure that if someone wants to "move on" from Carrara, they will find your posts, and ask to see how you like Lightwave (or maybe other software, but if you don't use it, they may not). They may also ask the forum for recommended alternatives, at which time your experience may be quite helpful. But, until then, maybe it would be a good idea for you to move on, and get past what seems to be a bit of a vendetta against DAZ 3D and Carrara??

Of course, I might be wrong, you may have only good intentions with your posts. If this is the case, I sincerely apologize. I this is the case, maybe if your posts seemed a little less antagonistic toward the Carrara community, then I might not mis-read your intentions? The post I quoted is a prime example, tell people they don't know what they are doing, when you don't have work you have done yourself to show as examples, is very antagonistic. If you were to show an animation you did in Carrara, and show the same animation that you did in iClone, and discuss the technical details between the two, and why you found iClone to be much better, I would consider that very valuable and thoughtful input. Input like that would create discussion, and possibly illuminate methods within Carrara that would help the workflow, as well as highlight features needed in Carrara to match those found in iClone.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, I do hope you find the software that makes you happy and productive. Obviously though, Carrara is not the software for you.

@ fantasy3d:

I would like to start my reply to you by saying: Aaaaah, at last. I repeat: Aaaaaah, at last I got someone's attention at Daz3D.

Let me explain. You signed-up in these forums 3 years ago, this is your first and only post, you have no gallery activities here or at Daz (as far as I can tell), and you appear to have carefully read all of my recent posts. The only possibility is that you are someone from Daz3D, probably someone in the upper management, most definitely someone authorized to speak for the company.

I am actually very glad that after so many years of silence about Carrara's fate, an official from Daz is here to provide some explanations.

First let me get 2 quirks out of the way, before explaining why I'm doing this.

The first quirk is that my telling that someone who chooses Carrara over IClone for character animation doesn't know what he/she is doing may be rough language, but by no means it is an insult. Re-read all my recent posts and you will see that I have been subjected to some very rough replies.

The second quirk is that I believe it is utterly unprofessional, repeat UTTERLY UNPROFESSIONAL, for Daz to stay silent about Carrara for so long, always letting its user base guessing what will happen next.

The way Daz3D has treated Carrara users, where many of them still believe there will be a Carrara 9 released very soon, is nothing short of torturing them.

As a comparison, when about 3 years ago, Autodesk decided to no longer develop or support one of their 3D apps - Softimage XSI - They made a public announcement to that effect, and that was the end of it.

Why won't Daz management make a statement about Carrara being dead and no more developed? At least that would be neat, clean, and respectful.

Having taken, hopefully, those 2 quirks out of the way, let me explain what I am doing.

About 3 years ago, I set aside a budget of $4,000.- to buy Maya. After using a demo version, I realized that Maya is not for me, so I spent my budget on Shade3D, Cheetah3D, Lightwave and IClone, Yes all four of them, including plugins and goodies. On the whole, it did actually cost me less than Maya.

I don't have the intention, nor the abilities at this time, to create artistic masterpieces with any of these 4 apps. I am only learning and, on occasions, I compare their features to Carrara's, and I sometime post my findings here, hoping that it will benefit others too.

It's like what a magazine like 'Consumer Reports' does. They take products, compare them, and publish the results.

Since my articles are always Carrara related and its itended audience is Carrara users, the most appropriate place to post them is in the Carrara forum, not in IClone or Lightwave or Shade3D forums.

To terminate this long article, l hope that you guys at Daz3D will have the courage to come-out and state publicly that Carrara is dead, and no future release of Carrara is to be expected.

Over the years IClone has turned from a hobbyist gadget into a rock-solid no-holds-barred professional animation software.

What IClone offers:

1. A professional modern GUI, with adjustable UI font size.
2. A professional timeline and graph editor.
3. A professional 3D particle generator, PopcornFX, used and tested in numerous games.
4. An animation infrastructure with near-Maya like features and capabilities.
5. Two physics engine, Bullet and PhysX (if you have an NVidia graphics card).
6. A soon to be released IRay renderer that would let IClone produce photorealistic outputs.
7. A soon to be released python-based scripting system to extend IClone's already mind-numbing features.
8. And on and on. I let you do your own research.

(Some of the features above are paid plugins).

The number of movies and animations made with IClone is so large that I can't mention them all here. This is my favorite though: The Amazing Adventures of Young Tesla.

Considering that this movie was made around 5 years ago with an older version of IClone, you can imagine what the latest IClone should be capable of.

From an animation point of view, especially character animation, Carrara is so weak, and IClone is so strong, that if you use Carrara over IClone, well, sorry to tell you, but you just don't know what you are doing.

A 3D app, no matter how good it is, needs plugin to expand its features and performances. From this perspective, Lightwave is particularly well-endowed See Link. The Lightwave plugin database is homongous. There are many free plugins, and many plugins you must buy.

Among all the Lightwave plugins, there is one that is truly jaw-dropping. It's called Turbulence FD (FD for Fluid Dynamics). It's a plugin to simulate Fluids and particles. It produces broadcast quality results. It's a bit expensive, but compared to similar plugins for Maya or 3DS Max, it is a bargain. See Link.

After months of hesitations, I finally bit the bullet and bought the latest and greatest version of Lightwave, i.e. Lightwave 2018. At $995.- Lightwave isn't exactly cheap, but it isn't that expensive either, considering its wealth of features, and the quality of the outputs you can get from it.

As a beginner Lightwave user, I cannot show any jaw-dropping work, at least not yet. But you can search Youtube for Lightwave demo reels, and see for yourself, if you haven't done so already.

Though one thing I can already say about Lightwave, from a beginner perspective, is that it is rather easy to learn and use. The thorough on-line documentation and the countless number of tutorials, are enough support materials to make you feel comfortable.

Lightwave has its quirks, and you must be willing to put-up with them, but it's well worth the effort. The integration with Daz/Poser contents can be achieved through either Poser Fusion or through FBX imports.

Comparing Lightwave to Carrara would really be unfair to Lightwave, because LigHtwave is a top-notch professional 3D tool used by prominent production studios worldwide, while Carrara is only a nice hobbyist toy. The best incentive for a hobbyist Carrara user to switch to Lightwave is the vast horizons in 3D art that can be explored with Lightwave, horizons that are totally inaccessible to Carrara.

Based on previous release dates, the next major release of Lightwave will probably be in 2021, i.e Lightwave 2021. This makes LIghtwave far less of the abandonware that some people try to make us believe it is.

More on Lightwave later, if I have time.

@ DustRider:

I have read through your comments, and your points are well taken. So let me answer them here.

Shad3D is not dead. They have consistently released one new version every year since 2016. It's the English version that is lagging behind. Carrara OTOH is dead. No Carrara 9 will ever be released. Daz does not have the resources for it. End of the story.

I agree that Carrara's strong point is the built-in support for DAZ/Poser content. But the strength stops here. Once you have loaded the content, you must spend hours, if not days adjusting the Poser textures to make them look good in Carrara. Then you must spend an inordinate amount of time with Carrara's ipoor and naccurate lighting to get a render that looks like a photo shot with a cheap $19.99 camera equipped with a plastic lens.

With Shade3D one spends a little longer to build the scene in Poser and load it in Shade, but after that things happen very quickly, because Poser textures need very little adjustments in Shade, and Shade's superbly accurate lighting system has the potential, in the hands of an expert, to create jaw-dropping scenes quickly, for an output that looks like a photo shot with a professional $5,000.- camera.

So if you look at not just one strong point, but at the OVERALL cost of a project, Shade3D lets you finish a project a lot faster, a lot cheaper, and with a lot higher quality too, than Carrara.

What I said above applies equally well to Lightwave, IClone, and Cheetah3D, when compared to Carrara, but I will discuss them in separate threads.

I was going to do a little write-up about why to use Poser - and Poser Fusion - along with your favorite 3D app, but then I ran into this excellent tutorial by Mark Bremmer (See Link), who spells it out far better than I ever could.

You can use all of your Poser compliant content library, along with their morph dials, within Poser with seamless access inside your 3D app, including 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema4D, Lightwave, Vue, Shade3D, and possibly others.

For Daz specific contents, the FBX export from Daz Studio works also just fine most of the times, if you are willing to pay the price of a simple export/import.

BTW, most of the JCM/FBM dials in Carrara never worked for me, especially for clothing items.

In a next article I will explain why one should use Shade3D, and not Carrara. Stay tuned...

@ DustRider:

In case you didn't notice, I have answered some of your questions in This Thread.