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Friday, July 1, 2011

Characters for Carrara: An Open Group Project




Many eons ago, when the internet was starting to trickle down so that most of America was opening up to AOL, I caught wind of an image, and was totally blown... On hearing that some guy did that at home on his computer, I became infatuated with learning more and how he was able to produce such an image. When I heard of "Bryce3d", I immediately began a hunt like a ravenous beast after the last piece of meat in a frenzy... I started playing around with it, and soon after picked up Poser. It wasn't long after I began doing those awesome metallic and crystalline figures over water in deep, rich and colorful skies...

Having since moved on from Bryce, I still remain in the original Metacreations "family", and some 5 years ago started to slowly but surely incorporate Carrara into my workflow.

Carrara is, without a doubt, the next level of Bryce. I truly believe that that was MetaCreations intent, the overall user interface is still pretty much the same, and so much of what I have come to love from Bryce is still present in Carrara. Only advanced exponentially =)

Having become exteremely comfortable in it and in wanting to get more out of my core rendering application, I started to think about how great it would be to have and use custom designed characters for use in Carrara... Sure we have a plethora of Daz Studio and Poser ready figures, but why not take serious advantage of Carraras awesome animation features and rigging features, especially with regards to custom figure design...



When I start a scene, the very first thing added is "a character"... Admittedly, Carrara users are somewhat spoiled in that we have direct access to our Poser/Studio Library presets should we need them. Having a collection of presets to call upon during the creative process is essential to good design, any artist, graphic, 2D, 3D or otherwise can tell you that... I can imagine painting a sky, and running out of blue =/

Wanting to increase creative flow and production time, I got to wondering what it would be like to use Carrara figures..... Poser and Daz Studio both offer a "complete" array of humans. Morph them, clothe them, pose them, you can really do a lot w/ your general Poser Figure... But surely Carrara, admittedly a more advanced program, could offer the community something in the way an Adam and Eve?!?

This Blog, "Our Blog", The Carrara Figure Project, will try to keep track of the communities efforts, progress and shared resources. Already some outstanding members of the graphics community have shown great interest in the project, and with your help, knowledge, experience and willingness to share, grow and develop as a Carrara community, this project is sure to yield some awesome output =)

Please feel free to comment direct to this blog, or email me personally. Don't hesiate to share any knowledge, news or resources, it's a group effort, and by helping each other and the cause, we all benefit. Carrara is a truly awesome program, seriously underrated by the 3D graphics community. This effort, could have dramatic impact on it's acceptance and popularity, which, in turn ensures better development and longevity of the application.



3D animation created by "3DAge"
Male Figure model created by "mmoir"

You can read the thread that started it all >> HERE << =D

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