My first imported Poser scene

[Altered_Ego]

I imported a PZ3 scene file, and selected the Native Importer.

Then it looked like there were no textures. OOOPs, I had to choose the Texture Display option.


I got the scene, with most of the textures. It appears Marlin's eyes are white. The texture on his shirt has lousy seams.

I tried a render, and it was all dark... I got lost fiddling with lights and cameras, and decided to call it a night.

[rickei]

It looks as though your imported scene has a roof??? If the light is above the roof it will be dark inside.
if you are not going to see the ceiling in your rendered scene I would remove/delete/hide it to make lighting easier.
Not sure how familiar you are with Carrara, but:
The easiest lights to get the hang of are "bulb" lights. You can either add one or change the light you already have to bulb. then make sure it is inside the building. That should get you started.

I don't know if the windows are actually transparent objects or not, but if they are, you will want to set "light though trans." under the render setting. that will let any outside light, flood inside the building.

also with the lights... you can select the light, and then select the object you want to point it at and hit Cmd+M and the light will "point at" the object... This is especially useful for Spot lights.

[laughingnome]

Originally Posted by Altered_Ego

I imported a PZ3 scene file, and selected the Native Importer.
I got the scene, with most of the textures. It appears Marlin's eyes are white. The texture on his shirt has lousy seams.

hi Ron,
seams are created during the UV mapping process not during the render process, if its got lousy seams then its a result of poor mapping or poor texturing neither of which is Carraras fault.
most likely its a poor texture map.

stu

[Altered_Ego]

Thanks for the info!


Yes, there is a roof. As I went to bed the other night, I said to myself "We need to get the lights inside. But how?!"

I was reading one tute that mentioned using a Director's Camera to get a good outside perspective? I couldn't seem to find it.

Also, I just couldn't seem to find much on inserting or moving lights.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated... screenshots are always incredibly helpful to this bumbling newbie.

It's possible the Shirt's texture only looks bad in the "Preview" mode. I've seen that kind of problem in Poser. I hope the shirt turns out ok because it's my favorite Marlin shirt!

[rickei]

Have you gone through Mark Bremmer's Dark Arts tut's? they are videos!
just watch 'em

He covers everything you are struggling with.

Find one of his posts... there is a link in his sig.

[Altered_Ego]

Thanks for the tip... I'd bookmarked the site before, and came back to it.

http://www.markbremmer.com/pages/TutMain.html

Those are great tutorials. I'll need time to absorb all that wonderful information..

Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy any of his tutes at this time... But I can read the free ones.

[Altered_Ego]

I think I like this Retro Diner more than the Highway Cafe.

The Retro Diner has the roof as a separate part. It's easier to look inside the building and handle lighting.

[Plum]

Hiya.

Suggestions:

--Work on the characters face. Right now he looks like all the other poser characters...pretty much a lifeless, blank stare ("maniquin'esque"). This is the primary 'give away' that something was done using poser figures.

--Pick up a book on lighting (digital or otherwise). Lighting makes, IMHO, one of the most important things in a scene.

--Textures. Textures, when just 'tiled' over an object look exactly like that...a texture tiled over an object. The key to getting textures more 'real' looking is dirt and chaos. Bumps, scratches, chips, warps, etc. These can't be "repetative"...you basically have to go over your scene and put little dings and marks here and there. There are a few books on texturing out there... ;)

Keep it up and keep us posted! :D

[Altered_Ego]

I do appreciate your input.

My Marlin character is very popular in Poser circles.. along with other characters I've created using DAZ content.

At this point, I'm not using Carrara to create or redesign characters or scenes. I'm learning to use Carrara's many features.

In this case I'm learning how to import a Poser scene.

[Patrick210]

Poser has an unusual way of lighting for a 3D program. It comes with a 3 point light setup right on the figure. Carrara's lights need to be approached in more of a "real world" manner. When you open a new blank scene it comes with a distant light which is just parallel light everywhere from one angle. If you are doing an outdoor scene you can convert it to a "sunlight" and select the realistic sky for the atmosphere. If your scene is totally inside you can delete the distant light and place spots or bulbs just as you would in the real world. You can set the range, color, shadow softness and other attributes of these. After that you can delve into the more subtle aspects of scene lighting such as ambient light, GI, Indirect lighting, HDRI, etc.

[OscarX]

I started like you using the native importer because I thought I could benefit from adjusting the morphs and actor groups right in Carrara... but that process is painfull, Carrara become slow in adjusting Poser model and the native importer not always work correctly. These days I do different setup, I do all the model details in Poser, expressions, even down to the individual finger positions and eventually interaction with objects or other posetes. Then use the Transposer 2 to bring the file to carrara. You can no longer move objects within actor (hands etc..), but you can move different actors separately and most importantly you can still adjust the material of each object in Carrara material editor (this is important because Poser rendering is a bit colorblind and the overal color and tone is not the same in carrara) The results are far better - and the transposer is spot on.
In poser people use tons of lights to simulate GI or simply because it is faster than ambient occlusion. You don' do that in Carrara.

[Altered_Ego]

I decided to setup my scene in Poser, then bring it into Carrara

It just made more sense to me.

[Thomas]

Please, try to stay polite each others and respect the others as you want to be respected.
Also, remember that this forum is about -creation- : modeling, rendering, setup, skinning, etc. Then, please, focus on the forum/website topic.

Content is tolerated when it's not the main subject. As I always said, not everybody can do everything, but i always prefer a geginner image made from scratch thatn a nice picture made only by an addition of content

Thank you for your comprehension.

[Hugo]

Let's stop the fight, and spread the creations, learning, and fun.

[Altered_Ego]

Thomas, I respect you, and this site.

You, and others here have much to teach me. Perhaps I have a little to share as well.

I have no desire for conflict. I've tried hard to show that fact.

Thank you for your understanding.