Carrara & DS Plugin Differences? Tweet

[Spectralis]

Over at the DS plugin forum we are all (well most of us!) admiring the latest Carrara v2 plugin release. I don't need to repeat here our sorry tale of woe. In one of the threads someone stated that the Carrara doesn't have node based editing. If this is correct would you explain the differences between the Carrara and DS plugins for those of us contemplating buying the Carrara plugin.

I realise this is a bit off topic considering the very recent celebrations with the release of the Carrara plugin but it might help with increasing sales in the long run because those of us with DS plugins will then be able to transfer the relevant knowledge and experience over to the Carrara plugin more easily. For obvious reasons I'll continue to support the DS plugin but I bought Carrara awhile ago because it has certain advantages over DS (e.g. more advanced animation) so I see no reason not to have both plugins. I'd just like to be aware of the differences so that it will be easier to learn.

[hamer66]

i'm not sure if you can/would be fair to compare any plug-in in regard to differences (just like you can't compare the poser and DS plugin). Simply because the software itself is completly different.

however,

Despite i'm just started playing with the carrara plug-in, there is one thing i'm noticing (and like, but that is personal taste), the carrara plugin is more integrated in the software.

For example, editing a material to render glossy or using a octane shader.
- In DS you can do that in the plug-in itself (editing/ appling a octane shader in the octane materials tab)
- In carrara you use the existing texture room to edit and if you want to apply a octane shader you use the existing shader preset tab (they show up under my presets after downloading).

That makes the use/learning curve of the plugin much easier if you are already familiar with the program its elf (no new node systems etc to learn).

Ps Enlish is not my main language...can read it fine..but writing not so good. hope it is readable

[SciFiFunk]

would you explain the differences between the Carrara and DS plugins for those of us contemplating buying the Carrara plugin.

Spectralis. I have both!

SUMMARY

Get it!

Now to the detail. A summary (so far I've been with this Plugin now as many hours as I can fit in since monday - average of 9 hours a day).


DAZ is better on the following.
- Seeing what's going on as if you were in the standalone. The table like presentation of everything is a real boon.
- Viewport fiddling. The settings override the camera settings. It's a small thing though as you set DOF on and AUTOFOCUS off per camera and you are almost as good.
- Drag and Drop materials. This might be in Carrara too but I've not found such a slick way of working yet.
- Seeing the Live DB. Much more graphical.
- DAZ gives you approx time left to complete Render. I've put in a request to have this.
- DAZ viewport shows the temp of your graphics cards. I've put in a request to see this.

CARRARA is better at the following.
- Shader integration. It's the same workflow as before! So that means UNDOs! Fantastic!
- Rendering. As it's 2.0 and the integration seems excellent to me, I'm finding it's rendering a clear picture much quicker. I've not done A/B tests yet as I'm learning the ropes again. It is faster though. *EDIT. I should qualify that. Direct Kernel is quicker, PMC is possibly slower. Too early to be sure on the PMC, and I'm commenting more on 2.0 vx 1.2 here I guess.
- Stablitiy. The DAZ crashes were driving me nuts.
- Viewport with modelling. DAZ doesn't have modelling, but now you can see your edits in real time, rendered! For a mad kit basher like me, that's a real boon.
- Animation. No bugs that I can find yet (only on simple animation atm) vs DAZ with it's missing a random material here and there, or not picking up the right camera/frame.

Overall Carrara is better - all my opinion. To me though there is no comparison between the software. If you are into large scenes and/or animation you've gotta be with Carrara.


Jury is out on:
Instancing. I'm not sure if the DAZ plug in saves the memory, I know it picks up the instances. The Carrara plug in works with the replicator and surface replicator, but not yet with duplicating (in terms of saving memory). This is causing me no end of pain right now as most of my large scale scenes are unrenderadble. A few of us have asked for this to be fixed (with the proviso that CTRL-D will only duplicate the exact same obj and shaders - a lot more useful than nothing).


There's more plusses, but have to get back to it, buy it man.

Scififunk (Steve)

[dustrider]

Just a bit more on how the Carrara plugin deals with materials.

The Carrara plugin (OC4C) does not have the Node Graph Editor (NGE) like the DS plugin. All of the material/shader work with the Carrara plugin is done in the Carrara Materials Room, rather than in an "external" plugin interface like OC4DS. So you may be a bit limited, but not too much. You can still create some very complex materials using the "Mix" material. The Mix material can be used in any of the main material channels/settings to add more complexity or control to a given category.

The attached image shows a basic SSS setup using a mix of Octane Glossy and Octane Diffuse (the Carrara Material is the top material that is retained for use in the Carrara internal rendrer). You can use the mix material for any of the channels under the main material (i.e. Glossy or Diffuse) to create even more complex materials. For example you could use the mix material in the Specular channel of the Glossy material if you wanted a mixture of two texture maps, or maybe use a mixture of a texture map and a dirt shader.

You also have the option of exporting the entire scene (with materials intact) to Octane stand alone if there is a must have node based material that you simply can't recreate in the Carrara shader tree. Unfortunately though, the way you work with Octane materials with OC4C is quite different compared to the DS plugin. But if your are familiar with the Carrara Shader Room, it is quite simple.

Like SiFi noted, you can't drag and drop materials into/onto the OCVP like with the DS plugin. But you can use Carrara's own built in Drag and Drop capabilities to drag the material/shader you want to use from the Carrara shader tab/library onto the object you want to put it on in the Assembly Room viewport(this drag and drop function also works in the Materials room). I should also mention that all the LiveDB materials are also found in the shaders tab (but the auto generation of created ions for the LiveDB materials isn't nearly as good as the icons/samples available in the DS plugin).

Note: The base starting point for the SSS shaders used in the example below where the DAZ SSS shaders from the LiveDB, and the same shaders shown in the attached Carrara shader tree image.

[Spectralis]

Thanks so much for your replies. I'm really sold on the Carrara plugin anyway seeing as I've been buying Carrara products for awhile anyway in anticipation of this plugin.

I'm a complete Carrara novice so some of my question may sound daft but I wonder how easy it is to recreate scenes I've made for DAZ Studio in Carrara? Can I open every item in a DAZ scene in the exact same location in Carrara? What I'm asking is: rather than loading each item into Carrara are there shortcuts to opening scenes in Carrara that have been created in DS?

[SciFiFunk]

Spectralis,

You are going to have to go back to school with this. Carrara is completely poser compatible, not DAZ compatible. Which means your runtime (poser part of it) works fine. Although the shaders often need tweaking. However you can't import characters. You can export non-character scenes as DAZ collada and it's pretty good, but a few things may be wrong.

You can kinda work between the two. I've preferred just to set my scenes up again.

It took me 3 months to start to feel competent again, and about 9 months in total before I was on top of things as much as I was in DAZ.

Don't let that put you off as I've never looked back. It's much more of an all round package.

I'm hooked!

[Sighman]

Is that strictly true SciFiFunc? If you use Carrara 8.5 you can import .DUF files into Carrara.

[dustrider]

Sorry, I've got to leave in a few minutes, so this will be a very brief reply.

I'll give a qualified yes. With C8.5 you can either directly open full DS scenes or use the import function to merge a DS scene into a Carrara scene (this is for scenes saved as .duf). However, some Genesi/Genesis2 content doesn't play well in Carrara (geografting really doesn't work, though people have come close), and of course materials/shader translation sometimes doesn't work well. But V4, M4, etc. all work just about as well in Carrara as in DS.

So, most of the time you can import your DS/duf scenes into Carrara with only shader tweaking needed. But, depending on what is in your scene, sometimes the results either aren't real good, or it just simplewon't open/import.

Hope this helps - got to run now.

[SciFiFunk]

Ah yes. I should say that all my Posts are for Carrara 8.1 not 8.5.

I also only work with with GEN 3 and 4, plus my own character models (made from an M3 Skeleton) not Genesis.

Sorry for any misunderstanding.

[Spectralis]

Again, thank you for your help. I got a little thrill of relief and excitement when I read that Carrara v8.5 can open .duf files. So at least, in theory, some of my scenes may open because they're all .duf files created in DS v4.5 or v4.6. Even if this means tweaking materials/shaders and loading certain individual items that don't load properly at least the bulk of the scene might be ok. This might save me the daunting task of loading every item and setting up the scene again.

One question to SciFiFunk - is it not worth upgrading to v8.5 for the .duf file loading functionality? I think owners of v8.1 can still get an upgrade discount.