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Modeling Objects in Carrara - Q&A - Come One and All

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  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168
    edited December 2016

    Speaking of multiple ways...

    If you copy and paste the following to the properties tray for the formula modeler, then parse, you should get a torus.  You can adjust its thickness with the p1 and p2 sliders - which can be animated!

    d=1+p1;e=1+p2;
    p=2*PI*(u-0.5);
    q=2*PI*(v-0.5);
    x=(d+e*cos(q))*cos(p);
    y=(d+e*cos(q))*sin(p);
    z=e*sin(q);

    Save the result to your browser tray for future use.  It is an adjustment to a formula from that great French formula site.

    Post edited by Diomede on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited December 2016

    Phil... that life preserver looks much better. I'd used outside/inside dimensions from USCG for grown male but apparently went wrong somehow as mine isn't beefy enough... mine appears to be on a diet. Had I added 2 more sections I could have rotated the rope hoops like you did at 90°... oh well I'll do better next time.

    diomede,  saved!  I messed around a bit but couldn't' figure out if there is a setting to change to have it open a hole in the center.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Thanks to everyone who has contributed their excellent advice and modeling wisdom to help make this thread successful.

    I wish you all Happy Holidays and a fruitful New Year?

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    And the same to you - and indeed to everyone!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    edited December 2016

    This scroll wing chair model, that I finished yesterday, was completely done with Carrara: from scratch to UV mapping and texturing. Today I uploaded a video with the process of modeling in Carrara:

    https://youtu.be/C8JLTnGpY_k

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  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Excellent modelling - well worth watching the video!!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    Thank you so much, PhillW!

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    Excellent video, Vyusur.  Saw that you have a similar tute for the chair in Blender.  Very interested to see them both. 

  • de3ande3an Posts: 915
    Vyusur said:

    This scroll wing chair model, that I finished yesterday, was completely done with Carrara...

     

    Very nice! Excellent modeling techniques.

    Thanks for posting.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    De3an, thank you for watching!

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    Vyusur, 

       Nice modeling job on the chair. 

     I see that you model in blender as well, is there a reason for switching from Blender to Carrara?  I  am contemplating learning blender/Modo or lightwave for the animation features because animation  is not Carrara's strong point.  Just curious.

    Vyusur said:

    This scroll wing chair model, that I finished yesterday, was completely done with Carrara: from scratch to UV mapping and texturing. Today I uploaded a video with the process of modeling in Carrara:

    https://youtu.be/C8JLTnGpY_k

     

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    mmoir said:

    Vyusur, 

       Nice modeling job on the chair. 

     I see that you model in blender as well, is there a reason for switching from Blender to Carrara?  I  am contemplating learning blender/Modo or lightwave for the animation features because animation  is not Carrara's strong point.  Just curious.

    Vyusur said:

    This scroll wing chair model, that I finished yesterday, was completely done with Carrara: from scratch to UV mapping and texturing. Today I uploaded a video with the process of modeling in Carrara:

    https://youtu.be/C8JLTnGpY_k

     

    I'd be interested to hear Vyusur's views on different modellers - but also why you think that animation is not one of Carrara's strong points?  That is not my view.

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    Phil, 

      It is more that I think Blenders animation abilities is much stronger than Carrara's but I don't know for sure as I don't use it.  For instance I am pretty sure in blender you can switch back and forth  from Forward Kinematics to Inverse Kinematics back to FK .  In carrara this is sort of doable but causes issues(very jerky when you switch) that I haven't solved yet  Also, I like Blenders Grease pencil  which would help me when I animate or the onion skinning. These are features that Carrara doesn't have and I try to improvise or work around the lack of these features in Carrara but it is a bit of a pain .

     Also, in blender you can  mirror copy poses . So, if you pose the first step of a walk say the full contact pose , in blender it is easy to mirror copy this pose to create the second full contact pose, in Carrara it is not so easy. 

    These are just some of the things off the top of my head.  . 

    PhilW said:
    mmoir said:
     

    I'd be interested to hear Vyusur's views on different modellers - but also why you think that animation is not one of Carrara's strong points?  That is not my view.

     

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    OK, I take these on board, I have hardly ever used Blender, and not for some time, and it has doubtless developed in this time.  By the way, Fenric's Pose Helper allows you to mirror poses and I use it quite a lot for that.

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    I did get Fenrics Pose Helper but it doesn't work with the some of the  figures, I can't remember which now.  I think it is all the genesis figures unless that has changed in the last year .I just remember you couldn't use it in a bunch of cases which was frustrating. .   

    PhilW said:

    OK, I take these on board, I have hardly ever used Blender, and not for some time, and it has doubtless developed in this time.  By the way, Fenric's Pose Helper allows you to mirror poses and I use it quite a lot for that.

     

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    mmoir said:

    Vyusur, 

       Nice modeling job on the chair. 

     I see that you model in blender as well, is there a reason for switching from Blender to Carrara?  I  am contemplating learning blender/Modo or lightwave for the animation features because animation  is not Carrara's strong point.  Just curious.

    Vyusur said:

    This scroll wing chair model, that I finished yesterday, was completely done with Carrara: from scratch to UV mapping and texturing. Today I uploaded a video with the process of modeling in Carrara:

    https://youtu.be/C8JLTnGpY_k

     

     

    Thank you very much, mmoir, for watching and comments! I've got Carrara because I am crazy about volumetric light and all about it. And Carrara has great abilities there. I am not an animator yet but I'm going to become one. I've tried some features about animation in Blender, particularly rigging, and IK function seemed to me extremely imperfect. I've tried to rig a figure several times without success. And I've made my first rigged character figure in Carrara. I found IK function very simple and comfortable there.

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235

    Blender is perfect modeling software for me. But for animation I am looking for something more handy and clear. If one wants to make IK rigging in Blender, he has to add a whole bunch of extra bones (over 10) to one foot only. I've seen many vids on youtube on the subject, then tried to use all of this stuff and it was really frustrating. If one ball joint worked well, another stretched as bubblegum.

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    Hmmm..... You seem to be in the same situation as I am but with different software.   I am a carrara modeler that is learning animation and looking at other animation software.   Thanks for your comments on your experience with Blenders animation issues.    

    Vyusur said:
     

    Thank you very much, mmoir, for watching and comments! I've got Carrara because I am crazy about volumetric light and all about it. And Carrara has great abilities there. I am not an animator yet but I'm going to become one. I've tried some features about animation in Blender, particularly rigging, and IK function seemed to me extremely imperfect. I've tried to rig a figure several times without success. And I've made my first rigged character figure in Carrara. I found IK function very simple and comfortable there.

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited December 2016

    John's Crazy Objects:  A Paneled Box - A Final Approach?  -  A Mini Tutorial... explaining how I got where I ended up.

    I've redesigned it just a bit.  My paneled box now has 1 opening per side. I've also added frosted, translucent, glass for the openings.  The square openings are creased, the blue lines in wireframe pic. The round openings are not creased and smoothing is craned up to 3. I would like to do a few more things with this.  Assign a different shader domain for each panel so that I've a lot more control... this could be a display case with one more clear panel inside and a door on one side, it could have a cusion on the top with sit morphs so 3D figures could sit on it... the possiblities are endless.

    Thanks to 3DAGE and TangoAlpha for their great advice on such a simple project... seems I was making it hard on myself... so I went back and modeled it similar to 3DAGE's examples and used TangoAlpha's idea to make the windows. Oops... nearly forgot to mention that I used MDO2010's advice to create edges for the box that are not so sharp and do not require creasing.

    Modeling in Carrara is funnnnn!

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    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    mmoir said:

    Hmmm..... You seem to be in the same situation as I am but with different software.   I am a carrara modeler that is learning animation and looking at other animation software.   Thanks for your comments on your experience with Blenders animation issues.    

    Vyusur said:
     

    Thank you very much, mmoir, for watching and comments! I've got Carrara because I am crazy about volumetric light and all about it. And Carrara has great abilities there. I am not an animator yet but I'm going to become one. I've tried some features about animation in Blender, particularly rigging, and IK function seemed to me extremely imperfect. I've tried to rig a figure several times without success. And I've made my first rigged character figure in Carrara. I found IK function very simple and comfortable there.

     

     

    I know, mmoir, that you are a Carrara modeler and I use many of your techniques. And I've completed your several tuts: about pencils and eyedroptut. I also try to complete walk cycle, but I've completed only two from series so far. I have two test video files with walk cycling G2 male, but I'm not enough satisfied with them and going to repeat my effort.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    The more you do, the easier (and better) it gets!

  • VyusurVyusur Posts: 2,235
    PhilW said:

    The more you do, the easier (and better) it gets!

    Exactly!

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    I was thinking of starting up the Animation exercise thread again. The weekly animation threads I started awhile ago are good for modelers but not many people are animating which is what I really wanted the thread for. The animations are getting too complex which happens so easily.  

     I will try and find my earlier post and create a new thread so we can get some animation practice going. 

  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,168

    I like this idea. 

    .

    mmoir said:

    I was thinking of starting up the Animation exercise thread again. The weekly animation threads I started awhile ago are good for modelers but not many people are animating which is what I really wanted the thread for. The animations are getting too complex which happens so easily.  

     I will try and find my earlier post and create a new thread so we can get some animation practice going. 

     

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

    Diomede ,  I will post the thread shortly . You could even do something from Phils new animation course .  I don't have it yet but you could practice animating some of the 12 principles of animation  that I am sure he demonstrates.

    diomede said:

    I like this idea. 

    .

    mmoir said:

    I was thinking of starting up the Animation exercise thread again. The weekly animation threads I started awhile ago are good for modelers but not many people are animating which is what I really wanted the thread for. The animations are getting too complex which happens so easily.  

     I will try and find my earlier post and create a new thread so we can get some animation practice going. 

     

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Mike,  What I'm thinking is to model a simple character, rig it... bones, constraints, morphs... and then animate it.  That should take me from start to finish and give me a better understanding of modeling for use in, as well as, animating.

  • mmoirmmoir Posts: 821

     Good luck and have fun with this . 

    wgdjohn said:

    Mike,  What I'm thinking is to model a simple character, rig it... bones, constraints, morphs... and then animate it.  That should take me from start to finish and give me a better understanding of modeling for use in, as well as, animating.

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    mmoir said:

     Good luck and have fun with this . 

    wgdjohn said:

    Mike,  What I'm thinking is to model a simple character, rig it... bones, constraints, morphs... and then animate it.  That should take me from start to finish and give me a better understanding of modeling for use in, as well as, animating.

     

    I goofed.... should have said "a better understanding of modeling for use in posing as well as animating."

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited January 2017

    John's Crazy Objects:  An Experiment with Replicate in the Vertex Modeler

    It was playtime today.  I'd modeled a few hoops last night and only use the very thin one here. I've spun it in a circle in both the X and Y axis, latter settings is shown.  What I thought was strange is that I had 2 extra loops overlapping the original loop, circle, highlighted, chosen, in red.  This was the first time I set "Radius" to 0, zero, which explains that. I was thinking about asking why it did this when, oddly enough, I figured out why on my own.  With "Radius"  set to 0 the first and last Replicated hoops, meshs, end up existing in the same exact place in the same place as the Replicated loop, object. By zooming in and selecting each, 1 at a time, I just moved them out of the way and deleted them later.

    Notes:

    • Where the swept circle etc meets... it will have to be rotated, adjusted, so that it matches the others.
    • I'm not happy with the hoops passing trough each other and know how to avoid this so will be redesigning it since I want an opening, smaller loop, where they meet.

    FYI: This is a design for part of an earring and was designed in a small scene. I can also use single loops to be used around the wrist... after all as is the loops are 4".  Before I commit to a final size I'll need to find out some sizes for wrist and hoop sizes. I have my original template saved in order to make adjustments.

    TIP:  When using Path Sweep it is always good to make copies of both the the object and path since one will be lost when Path Sweep is done working it's magic... does that make sense. Ohh... I hope you know what is meant. :)

    Gotta go... have an Animation exercise to finish.

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  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited July 2017

    TIPS:  Modeling in Quads as opposed to triangles.  -  Triangles to Quads ... Things I've figured out.

    • Eureka, thar be gold in these hills. :)  Appears there is more ways than I know of to do things in Carrara... surprised? I've been trying to figure out how to turn triangles into quads. I had one way to use but that was it... Now I've found another.
    • I created a 5 sided 2d circle and used Tesselate Mid Edge to center for the filled circle By doing so 10 sides or outside polylines are created. What I end up with are filled polygons with 4 sides or vertices... looking kite shaped. Now I can select every other one of the vertices and scale it out to reform a circle. I've also tried this with various number sided circles as long as Mid Edge to Center is chose it seems to work. I can later take that flat 2d circle and use dynamic extrusion or other tool to give it sides. What have I stumbled upon? I'm starting to feel like a Tomb Raider.
    • By using Tesselate Vertex to Center you will create triangles. Now try Tesselate Mid Edge to Center. Viola!.. no longer any triangles.  This is because a triangle only has 3 sides so you only create a vertices in and lines for each side.  How cool is that.
    • Nothing wrong with triangles for personal use... But from what I understand DAZ and likely other places require quads. Please let me know if I'm wrong.  What I found somewhat odd is an older DAZ item I got recently with a fingertip filled by a flat poly of more than 4 vertices... looked like an n-gon to me.
    • I've not discovered where I might use Tesselate Mid-Edge to Mid-Edge yet. From what I've experienced with it is it creates triangles which are small on the outside... like it's icon shows.  Now that I know to use Mid-Edge to Center I could fix those but won't be using Mid-Edge to Mid-Edge until I either find a situation where it work or find out more why anyone would want to use it.
    • Tip!  Always Tesselate the 2d circle before using Dynamic extrusion... this will give you the extra points to extrude with. That's a lot faster, IMO, than fixing things later going back and using Tesselate later.

     So what does that mean for you and I?  Well I have a lot of objects that I used the Lathe tool and Dynamic Extrusion which I have triangles.  Theres a way for make them quads very easily. It might be easier to just do them properly... good thing I saved most of those Lathe templates.

    Modeling in Carrara is funnnnn!

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
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