This is my first Carrara scene! I'm just learning to get my head around inside this program, and have decided it's once again time to stop and ask for directions! I have and study the .PDF manuals often, but believe these forums were made for just this kind of thing. It's always so much better knowing there is somebody to share advice for a specific cause? 1.) My first real concern has to do with linking several lights Brightness to one light, with the Edit>Promote to Master function. When I try this the light I'm trying it on loses its listing for Brightness, in my properties palette, all together? 2.) I understand where the render properties output needed to be changed to a photoshop 2 format in order to highlight the Mask function, but then I ca'nt get the default toggle off, thus my image still renders in full? 3.) The most obvious err are his eyebrows, they did'nt import in from my Poser 5 .obj export. I included groups when I exported, but there seems to be no close listing other than the head, but that wo'nt ungroup? 4.) The Master Shaders area of the Sequencer, from the Assembly Room, looks like an easy way to edit the shaders, but I ca'nt pick up how to edit any individual parts'? I was just draggin and a droping my shaders from my Shader Browser onto my Objects' listings in the Sequencer, but just now even that would'nt work, and I needed to keep picking at my properties palette. 5.) Another thing I'm trying to do is hollow this figure out; to use a glass material, by selecting my figure and a slightly smaller duplicate of him, but then the Edit>3D Boolean function is'nt lit? 6.) My final question is how to set the Document Window Size, in the Assembly Room, numerically? I think this will help me in getting my figures into the proper perpective/Aspect Ratio, before I render. I see the Render Room has numeric output in the properties palette. Thanks ahead of time!

1. You now have to change the value of the master light, not one of the 'slaves', it is in the 'masters' sections (in the same drawer as the time line). 2. You get your alpha as an extra alpha channe. You can not turn 'pixel' of, because that is the color of your image, otherwise there would not be an image. 3. Go to the shader room, there you can add extra channels to the shader named 'eyebrows', especially color and transparency (with some new problems ahead, search the forums for those threads). 4. Double click a master shader, or click the 'Edit' button in the properties, you will be catapulted into the Shader Room (the Brush icon). 5. It already is hollow! You can not make it any hollower than it is! You only need to add thickness, but you could do without that if you are not making an image that hass to pass scientific tests concerning the refraction of the light through glass. Try it with a glass shader (do not forget to tick the box for 'light through transparancy') Boolean is for intersection surfaces only. 6. You should turn on View -> Turn On Production Frame to see the, well, production frame. You can drag the corners. If you have checked the 'Keep Proportions' box it will, well. You guessed it. Keep it's proportions. To change the size of the window, drag the coner with the circle, or drag the sides. Keep it up!

1.) When I select my favorite light, Edit>Promote it to Master, open my Sequencer Palette(The Timeline one,) click the Master Objects button, and then select my favorite light, this is what I see, but there is no Brightness Slider?

2.) Your explanation of channels and Alpha Masking seemed very indept, but I think much of it went over my head. Please let me begin by simply asking this, can a Alpha Mask be render with only Black or White pixel values? 3.) When I open my Sequencer palette, click on the Master Shaders button, then double click on a shader this is what I see, but there is no entry named Eyebrows on any of all those materials. Is this to where you were refering, I was actually hoping to find my missing sandle buckles in the same place?

4.) Thanks, actually the image I posted in this past post has been touched up quite a bit. I managed to change all of those very dark icons by dragging the yellow alluminum shader from my browser to where that blue shader is now! 5.) I was trying very hard to follow the help, you were kind enough to offer, on the VM, but being new to Carrara I was just as happy to move on with just setting up my first textured scene. Thanks for reminding me, it made me have another look at our last post. I think I picked up on where I was getting confused. You mentioned having added a little negative thickness. This threw me way off. Now I've realized negative thickness must just be refering to the direction the thickness is added, i.e. inward vs. outward. I've found working with the VM is very slow, with 300MBs of SDRAM and a Celeron 700 ATX, and impossible on my 128MB Celeron 400 Desktop. Wich would be fine if the scene would then save, but then I keep recieving an "An inkown error occured while executing Save As...." message, the same thing happens whith the Save, function? I've been hoping to just set the thickness, export, and then reimport, but I'm also getting a "An unknown error has occured while executing Add Thickness" message. My only guess is the 50MB .DXF is too large. So, I exported other formats from P5. I found that .3ds and .lwo are very small, 6MBs and 3MBs, but the former imports shreded and the later is'nt supported. Then I tried exporting, from within C2, with my OBJ import, as .3ds, .wrl, but recieve futher "An unkown error has occured" message. Doing the same from .DXF worked for .3ds, but when it Re-Imports it's too small for anything, it's bounding boxes fill the document window before you can see the model. .3DMF exports and imports from P5(Without groups.) and C2, but I'm only selecting individual facets when I try to double click it into the Model room. Is there another way to get a figure from the Assembly Room to where we want in the Model Room besides double-clicking? And BTW can you remember what value of thickness you used, this way I can have a starting point to begin my testing? 6.) OOps, forgot to try that before I left to come here to the Library. Be back tomorrow! 7.) I also picked up on what you mention, regarding Global Illumination, in the other post, and did some reading of the manual. C2 has a Global Illumination renderer, I've actually made some improvements with(That I'll show with a little more work on my Master Light.) My big problem with it is that I ca'nt get it to work, much at all, without my little global lights placement. This is what I get with the setting attached? The expiriments are coming great, I think, thanks again for the imput, cheers! = )

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=106&Form.ShowMessage=1737485

6.) That works fine, thanks a bunch! 7.) I'm getting warmer, with the Global Animation Renderer, and all your help! Here is as soft as I've rendered his skin. Still not quite as ambient as your HDRI file, what do you think? I'd have put more detail in, but am still trying to solve question 3, for a small handful of parts now, i.e. eybrows, eyeballs, belt trim, and buckles. 8.) I've also pondered a new query, do the spot renders ever stick? It'd be nice if my spot renders would'nt dissapear on each other between each other. I could actually get alot more previewing together if they did'nt. Also, I thought you may be interested in another post I've started here in the Carrara Forum, at the attached link. It concerns Physics, and piling all fo the Treasure Freebies I've been archiving for years now.

It is looking better and better all the time! Keep it up! (it is a long Easter holiday now, and no internet for me, yet, at home) As Antoine would say: happy rendering!

Hope you've had a wonderfully satisfying Easter Holiday, Hoof! I spent most of it pluging away at C2, while my family eat, and eat, and..well, you get the picture.

1.) Though I've had much luck so far, I still have'nt mastered my light set.

2.) Allthough this is'nt especially pressing now, I'm still wondering if a Black and White Only image can be rendered?

3.) This is my BIGGEST setback! I'm missing a bunch of groups i.e. eyebrows, belt trim, and sandle buckles. I've tried esporting, from P5, a few times over, but have'nt seen them in the Shader Room or anywhere else. Could I bring in any specific creenshots? RAR'd this files is about 6 1.44MB files, if you'd care to have a look, I could post them? This may be a bit extreme, but I'd hate to end this scene here!

5.) Post 5 explains the diffiiculties I've had trying to get with your thickness tuteledge. Maybe posting this scene, on my website, is'nt such a bad idea, I could easily keep the URL low profile by only IMing it to you?

7.) I've also had a margin of luck with Global Illumination. It would be nice to see it in use alone, and not like the pic. in post 5, but I think I can live without that for now.

8.) It would be nice to see spot renders stay, and not dissappear on me?

Also, the link in post 5 now has an animation WIP, of mine, in it!

Thanks ahead of time, hoofdicommissaris! You've been my biggest help with this scene hands down, I appreciate your guidance very much, please take care! BTW, what does your name mean?

9.) And this is'nt near as important as some other questions, but I still do'nt know where this color comes from. How is this ground color changed? I tried reading pg. 213-215, on Backdrops and Backgrounds, but still have no luck changing it. As is the scene renders almost immediately, but as soon as I introduce an Infinite Plane, or Finite Plane, to change the brown color, the render time soares somewhere over %400!

Here are a couple more, no so pressing questions I hav'nt found in the manual yet, and am hoping someone could point out for me rather simply. 10.) Are scenes easily merged? I'd be a bigt fan of this function, as I'm inclined to start a new scene for almost anything. 11.) In Poser 5 you can save a camera's position a couple different ways, what is the easyest way to do this in C2? As is I have the coordinates writen down on scrap paper. 12.) I made a coin from a cylinder object, saved it to my objects and then re-imported to find it lost it's shape. So, I made another coin, exported, re-imported, and added to the Objects Browser, but then I realized it loast it's Centered Hotpoint along the way somehow, even though the Lock Hotpoint to Center option is toggled on. What do we do to put it back in the perfect center? Right now the Physics option barely works.