Poll: Most Popular Feature Requests.

[-ash-]

Well, here's my tuppence worth.

I would also like to see things that improve the existing workflow. But also hair, cloth simulation, improved animation, improved preview render time (texture room, etc) oops that last one is not in the poll

No requirement from me to add Hex functionality to Carrara (I am lucky enought to have Hex and Silo ). Let the modeling apps model and Carrara texture, light, animate and render. I know Carrara is designed as a complete app but if all the best bits from Hex are in there then there is no need for Hex.

[Naes3d]

Yeah, mirror modelling and symetry are the same I believe.

I see what you mean ash when you say Hex needs to maintain it's separation, but mirroe modelling is far to standard of a tool to be restricted to Hex alone.

It seems like the building blocks for a symmetry modeller is already there but unrealized.

[-ash-]

I hear ya Naes3D. Mirror modeling for all, but Hex will always have more features. Works for me

[derk]

I am with Handycam in that I would rather see workflow improvements on the current features as opposed to throwing in new ones. I know it might not be the most popular reason to upgrade, so a combination of improving the current features and throwing in one or two new ones could be a good strategy. Anyway nothing is more frustrating to me as using an application and running into all kind of problems (bugs). On the other hand nothing is more rewarding as using an application and realising it does not only do the job, but does it very well and the people who designed it really knew what they were doing and then some more. Carrara has both characteristics and I would love to just being able to love it (without the frustration I mean)
Improvements: Better speed (maybe this needs a lot of rewriting of code and is therefore not easy) better physics (currently combining physics and keyframes is not great), integration of modeling rooms (I really love the spline modeler) and assembly rooms. This would also allow backdrops for the spline modeler. Get rid of the storyboard.
New features: Hair (grass) and and better water and wind simulation. This would very well complement the terrain modeling features.
Derk

[medeamajic]

I think Carrara should add Hexagon features to Carrara if they can. I like the dynamic hair in Poser and Hair Cut for 3DS Max and the figure animation of Poser and 3DS MAX is very good. I would like to think Carrara 6 might get even bettet rigging and IK then Poser and 3DS Max along with even better hair and cloth editors. Like others I think better animation previews are a must. Poser can play back the Daz/Poser figures so much better than Carrara. Carrara has some great features but Poser runs so much better and faster with better animation previews than Carrara. I have heard Daz Studio has good previews but I do not use it. The slow and slugish animation previews of Carrara 5 are the achillies heal of a great program. I like how Poser can preview animations as toon stlye animations. I guess I would like to see Carrara add as many features as they can.

[medeamajic]

What were the results for this poll? Will Eovia see the results?


Poser integration with Carrara is great but I can get better figure animation previews with Poser. Faster and better previews and Carrara will rock.

[Thomas]

I'm an Eovia member, then, I think I can see the result ;) Then, I can forward this to the good personn... which also read this forums!

[WillBellJr]

Well I don't feel too much Hex should go into Cararra because as already stated, then Hex won't be needed!

I however do >enjoy< the fact I can model in Cararra so maybe as already suggested, a "Silo level" (aka very decent) modeler can be finished for Carrara. Just tweak the VM modeler a bit to match some common standards and leave it at that. (Actually I'd like to see some C5 features like the viewport title menu brought over to Hex - make working with the both of them not so dissimilar.)

I'm all for the dynamics but I feel foremost should be plant dynamics - we have everything else with landscapes and atmospheres and water, lets finish it with plant dynamics - it drives home the realism of the moving clouds and wind forces.

Better yet would be to add a parameter to an object or polygon group that indicates stiffness or wind resistance. Then I could model say a tree trunk, give the root maximum stiffness and the top of the trunk a lesser amount. When the wind blows, the trunk would bend (along with other branches) due to the forces.

This would allow any polygon model (xfrog etc.,) to react to wind based on polygon group stiffness settings...


Strand based hair or at least a "Sasquatch Lite" level of hair would make Carrara golden in my book. I agree XSI sux right now cause you have to spend $7K just for hair - ridiculous!

I'll admit that I sometimes also hate having to switch rooms to accomplish certain things BUT I understand the reasoning to having "seperate work areas".

If I had my way, I'd prefer to see >all< the modelers combined into the assembly room - no switching required for modeling or scene setup - the other rooms are fine.

I would also like to see the Storyboard room used for something else as well - a kick azz UV editor / Paint would be hella nice for sure!

-Will

[WillBellJr]

Okay, now after seeing Hex 2 today, yes, they can put Hex 1 into Carrara and call it a day for the VM modeler - that all Carrara needs (just please combine all the modeling tools and assembly room into one... )

-Will

[jtbullet]

Time for a new poll, zbrush has a stong contender with Hexagon 2.

How about some new features for Carrara:
1. Poser character wizard, allows you to pull a body, hair, clothing, and mats to quickly pull together a new character.
2. Dynamic lod for models and textures during rendering. Give it some threshold controls and some blending so that you cant see the change though.
3. In Hexagon, hook up the carrara procedurals to the painter to be able to paint and mix shaders from carrara, please allow more than 1 shader to be painted, and give it transfer controls like in photoshop.
4. In hexagon, give us some cr2 related tools for rigging, so that we can use the hex/carrara combo to truly leave poser behind. A great thing would be for carrara and poser to share some code, give the poser version a higher price so curious labs can still make some profit, I dont really want Poser to go away, I want it to get better.
5. Approach animation characters from a motion builder perspective. A lot can be learned there.
6. Allow the other formats of hdri to be accepted.
7. Rendering, add a feature that will do a quick render in a number of rendering presets. For example, take your scene, do a marquis selection and render to your preset bank a set of thumbnails for evaluation, that way you could quickly make a judgment on which rendering option presents the best trade off of speed versus quality.
Ill think of more, but with all the improvements to hexagon, we can really start to expect more of carrara 6! I'm hoping its our christmas present this year. Eovia must capitalize on its momentum, by cherrypicking the best new feature from each competitor (Maya Max Cinema XSI Vue) they can pull a ton of marketshare from Poser users who have waited until now to move to a pro app. Thats where the market is, the former Poser user.

[medeamajic]

I think there is a market to tap with Poser/Daz models. I imagine Bryce 6 will make use of Poser/Daz models. I still remember MetaCreations. I think if MetaCreations was still around there would be a common file format between all of them and a huge community. While Poser, Bryce and Carrara are competition they also help compliment each other. A common file between them all that has objects with texture, shading and animation would be great.

[Sarissi]

Medeamajic,

Most of Daz's stuff is for Poser, since they started in the Poser Content market. Daz Studio imports Poser Content. The bulk of their income is from Poser Content, followed by Bryce and Mimic Pro.

[medeamajic]

I know Daz makes content for Poser. That is why is why I use Poser/Daz. Rather than use Transposer there should be a common file format they all could use. Instead of a Poser, Bryce or Carrara icon they could have something new. I think they would all have to have the same Bones and IK system for it to work.

[dlk30341]

I voted for 1, 2 and 6.

[Sarissi]

Originally Posted by medeamajic

I know Daz makes content for Poser. That is why is why I use Poser/Daz. Rather than use Transposer there should be a common file format they all could use. Instead of a Poser, Bryce or Carrara icon they could have something new. I think they would all have to have the same Bones and IK system for it to work.

I think I understand, but, what you run into is Copyrights and Patents, which is the reason all the 3D apps use their file formats (really wonky look on my face).

However, Transposer only reads Poser Scene Files (.pz3 and .pzz). Native Poser support in Carrara and in Daz Studio (the import I referred to) reads most all of the Actual Poser Content File Formats (which makes the Actual Content).

Poser Scene files are made up of Poser Content (from whatever source, including Daz3D, Sixus1 Media, etcetera, but not Content themselves.

[AlainK]

Originally Posted by WillBellJr

Okay, now after seeing Hex 2 today, yes, they can put Hex 1 into Carrara and call it a day for the VM modeler... )

Now wouldn't that be something? Hexagon 1 into C6? But I doubt it could happen since the workflows of both apps are very different. It would be nice if they could do it. The min/max I expect is C6's addition of Silo's workflow into VM. And that would already be something instead of being useless as it is now for most users. Silo and Hex under the same Eovia umbrella. That's already something, if you ask me.

[Naes3d]

As far as I am concerned, if C6 gets the symmetry modelling capability, Eovia can continue to be stingy with Hexs other tools. Carrara would actually be my preferred modeller with it. It would also be good if C6 let you hit an update button that would apply all your changes in Hex to your Carrara scene.

[the_woods]

Carrara is improving its animation tools with every release, but they still have a loooong way to go.
I originaly bought version 3 but had to get Poser to do character animation.
There are some needed tools missing from C5 that Poser has.
I have got used to using Poser like one of Carraras rooms.
It helps if you have a fast PC that opens applications quickly though.

[Piem]

Improving computing and rendering time for both micro- displacement and subsurface scattering

I vote for the 6th (fluids) and also the 1st (soft body) features

[Bov]

Carrara could be the program I make my first short film in – you’ve got it all: character building tools, scenery, clouds and water. I’m really hoping that Carrara’s character building tools improve so that some ideas I’ve accumulated over the years can finally be realised. I bought Carrara 5 Pro and I’m trying to figure out how to build my own character. I’m enjoying this process at the moment as the way the program is made I’m finding things relatively intuitive. I had bought XSI (a great program) but it was just too complicated – you felt that a control buried somewhere, when activated, would turn a street lamp on in Alaska.



So what I’m saying is I would like Carrara to have all the things you would expect in a good 3D application, but without the spaghetti. Hair, soft body and cloth would be great. I’d also like to be able to move a bone and have the bone deform the mesh. Ultimately non-linear animation would be great. On the small end of things I would like a lasso for selecting parts of a mesh, and when I’m in the vertex modeller when I select the model and go to distort I would like to see a preview of what is going to happen before I apply it.



Carrara could be an amazing program – I’m sure there’s a market for a program that sits in between today’s Carrara and XSI. So in a perfect world I would like Carrara to meet XSI half way and I would be intrigued if XSI simplified their app for this mid way market.



The bottom line is I’m actually enjoying working with Carrara; but as I learn the program I think I could out grow it pretty quickly. So I hope there will be some major improvements to Carrara in the future so that I can get some of my ideas out into the real world before I forget them.

Cheers