[Thomas]

Open the gift, created in Hexagonor import any model you want to use for this tutorial, in Carrara.

1: Select all the elements of the gift 2: Go to the Edit Menu 3: Choose "Smooth Objects"

1: To avoid potential edge creasing, check the "Change edges creasing" option 2: Select "Smooth" 3: Check the "Change Smoothing" option 4: Check the "Smooth" radio button 5: Set the "Modeling" slider value to 0 (or 1) 6: Set the "Rendering" slider value to 3

Select the cube of the gift and switch to the Shading room – 1: Set the color 2: Set a Highlight color 3: Set the Shininess value: the smaller the value, the more it will spread 4: Set a reflection and add a "Value" to the subchannel

Go back to the Assembly room and pick a Strip. Go back to the Shading room to change the values 1: A new color 2: A value for the Highlight 3: A new value for the Shininess

Drop the master shader to the unshaded parts of the Gift.

1: Press the Caps Lock key to change to Hotpoint position. The future copies will be based on the Hotpoint position. 2: Move it down the cube. Take care to pick the small black dot and not the axis

Create three copies of the original Gift, change the size and shaders. Create a group which includes each element of each gift.

1: In the Scene Tab, add a HDRI Map in the Background section 2: Add the needed HDRI map

The preview of the HDRI Map. You can find it in the Content CD of Carrara 5. The hdri-20_color from Sachform has been used.

A small render test, faster to preview with four gifts than 200.

Add a vertex object in the assembly room and create a 9x9 grid 1: Activate the soft selection and move some polygons to create an irregular surface 2: Apply a smoothing 3: Set the slider value to 1 for the Modeling 4: Set the slider value to 2 for the Rendering

Set your point of view in the Assembly room

Add a Surface Replicator to the scene and double click on its name in the scene tree to edit it 1: Choose the ground as the source object 2: Add each gift group in the Replicated object section 3: Set the number of copy needed 4: Change the default values for the transformation -- Add a big value for the vertical rotation and random scale, to create a high range of variations to the copies 5: Enter the distance between the copies. It should be the higher size value of the biggest gift box 6: Use the Shuffle button to try different random positions

The preview in bounding box display and mesh display, to preview the result.

1: In the Render room, choose the Photoshop file format 2: Check both Alpha Channel check boxes 3: Check the Fragment Distance box

Open your render in a 2D software like Photoshop. Now, use your Alpha channel to suppress the background and create your own, or use the Fragment distance channel in combination of the Lens Blur filter in Photoshop to create your depth of field.

This tutorial is now finished. I hope it will help you creating stunning images made with Hexagon and/or Carrara 5!