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Ten Years After - The Making of Dartanbeck.com

So here on October 14th of 2020, this is how far Dartanbeck.com has come. I never imagined it would grow this big this quickly, but it still has a l o n g way to go to fulfill my original intention of being a CG Filmmaker's complete(ish) resource - mostly geared toward using Carrara, but with hopes that it'll also inspire users of other software as well. It's amazing what can be done with little time - It's often difficult for me to get to a computer for any length of time.

Dartanbeck.com

Dartanbeck.com Home - Kind of a blog of what's inside with recent events toward the top of the page, under the initial greeting

Carrara Zone

Carrara Zone - Currently mostly a landing page to hold all of the Carrara oriented pages, but will eventually also serve as a more Carrara-centric blog

Carrara Info - A new Index for Carrara Information - features, guides, video links... this is meant to become a more cleanly placed and organized ►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄ sort of thing. It now houses a new Forum Help!!! Links index, but this time with Carrara Training videos from Cripeman and GKDantas, and will include my own as well.

Carrara Cafe - A word about an amazing site!
Cripeman Memorial - A loving dedication to a lost friend and the Index to his Cool Carrara Tricks
GKDantas' Carrara Training Videos - Wonderful guides into many of Carrara's features and tools
Installing Carrara - Just some important tips to get all you deserve from this incredible software. I'll be expanding this page soon
Custom Browser - Still needs support images to guide the text, but this is part of what keeps Carrara very efficient for me to work in
Carrara Plugins - An edited and updated version of Jay Nola's FAQ, this page also expands to several others filled with information, links and demonstrations. BrianOrca's Ocean, YaToons and more are on this main page within Jay's FAQ
>>> Alvin Bémar
>>> Daz 3D Plugins for Carrara
>>> Digital Carvers Guild
>>> Fenric
>>> Frederic Rible
>>> Inagoni
>>> Philemo
>>> Sparrowhawke
>>> VWD
►►► Carrara Information Manual ◄◄◄ - talks about the origins of the post, etc.,
Dantanbeck's Articles - Meant to be an index to the hybrid Video/Written articles I create - currently just links to my articles
>>> Finding Carrara - a story of how I discovered my favorite reason to be on a computer!
3DXtract e-zine - Keeping this historic archive of greatness alive!
Physics and Particles - a branch off of the Forum Help!!! Links, specifically regarding Physics and Particles

Carrara CG Workshop - In addition to being a landing page for all of the pages within, this page also explains the goal for this section

Story - It all begins with one of these, right?
Pacing and Rendering - A discussion regarding common film practices as well as render outputs for animations

Pre-Production Phase

Pre-Production Phase - The things we do to prepare for Production

Concept Art - I have a few of my designs in here. I'll be adding more along with descriptions of them... eventually
Concept Art > Kitbashing Marcoor - The process of making my cool Marcoor Hunter space vessel

Scene (stage) Setup - Currently only has one offering: Volumetric Lighting, which is an early hybrid video/written article. It doesn't have much of a written version yet - but does include a Base Scene Download

Character Setup - This seems to be my main interest lately, as it has quite a few articles. Don't worry, I'll be getting on to other stuff soon!

Introducing Rosie 5 - I needed to get something started to find a focus toward developing this web site. This was it
Making Rosie 5 - Developmental information on creating my main protagonist - to be developed further
Using Genesis in Carrara - A work in progress that will explore many ways to use various Genesis generations within Carrara
Genesis Morph Reduction - My method of not only reducing the weight of a Genesis figure, but also the number of available sliders in the Parameters tab
Dynamic Hair - One of the parts of the Hybrid Video/Written article for Introducing Rosie 5
EYEdeas 3+ - A look at using Arki's amazing 3D eyeballs! Another part of Introducing Rosie 5
Millennium Teeth - Using third-party teeth to get what my character (Rosie 5) needed to complete her ultimate look. Another part of Introducing Rosie 5
Character Transfer using NLA - I often like to update/upgrade my character to a fresh base figure with a different set of morphs (often when I buy new ones) - here's how I transfer the shape over
Character Design - With its Character Template Scene download, this video/article demonstrates how I build each of my characters, monsters, animals, etc., It also covers the basics of creating shaders for Genesis (or any other figure, for that matter)
Modeling for Genesis - A fresh look, rejuvenating an article I wrote here quite some time ago. The video I made then is still helpful in how to send models from Carrara into Daz Studio, rig them to conform to the intended figure, and save back into the library.

Production Phase

Animating - This is where my animation articles will continue. I placed some useful info in here to get it started

Hybrid aniMation - another hybrid article I'm working on now. Currently contains much of the info from aniMating in Carrara
aniMate 2 - Daz Studio comes with a free version, but when we buy the full version we get some really great bonus features!

DAZ ZONE

DAZ ZONE - This is an exciting page full of my love for Daz 3D with a stroll back in time to when Genesis came out and then even further down is this wonderful video I posted years ago - Daz 3D as it was when I was an aspiring young PA here! (the face you see there is Kevin, who was my boss! :) )

Daz 3D Content - Mainly just a container/landing page

Daz 3D Bundles - A look at the amazing wealth of content to be found in Bundles at Huge savings
Genesis 1 ROCKS!!! - I really dig into what I love about this amazing figure generation
Victoria 4 - A look at what is still (by far) the absolute Most Supported 3D articulate human figure on the planet
Some Personal Favorites - Kind of the opposite of "Buy something that doesn't work", this is stuff that I love, and it does work! I'll be adding a LOT more to this one as I've only just begun
Carrara 8.5 Pro Content - This page shows the massive bundle that comes with Carrara 8.5 Pro. The price of Pro includes all of this plus Carrara Pro? Very Cool!

Daz Studio - I've started this page to help gather information towards learning this amazing suite called Daz Studio. As I learn I'll be expanding this whole section, but I like this page now already. I update it when I can - several times so far.

Content Creation Tools - Oh Yeah! This is what I mostly use DS for now - and even in that I've only been scratching the surface!

Platinum Club + Experience - It's amazing how much value we can get from this service if we check in often! Even with little internet time I've been able to really fill up my library over the years - and the yearly membership cost is tiny comparatively

PC+ Cloth Frenzy - I've only just started this page. Since I started using VWD and removing rigging from figures so that I can add/delete polygons, change domains, etc., stuff in the low-price range in the PC+ catalog looks great and is fun to model with! I am working on a tutorial on how I make the clothing into static prop objects and then model them to fit the morphed figure, then run them through VWD as if using them as conforming clothes. It's really neat!

Do It In Post

VFX Zone > Fusion - Movie Magic at its Finest! Hollywood-grade compositing software

Editing Zone > DaVinci Resolve - This page contains the Resolve Training materials I'm using to learn this Hollywood-grade Non-Linear Editor - and the free version also includes Fusion, built right in! (along with Fairlight Audio and Resolve's high-end color corrector)

A Quick Look - This is my short demonstration of some of the techniques I used to create the "Introducing Rosie 5" video

Gallery

Gallery - This landing page also has a carousel of some of my images you've all seen before. The Still Images and Video pages are very much incomplete still

Videos

Still Images

Inspiration

Downloads

Starry Sky for Carrara

Carrara EnvironKits

Base Scenes

The Software

The Software - I've included most of what I'm currently using and more. I still have plenty of stuff to add though. HitFilm will be coming to this page, and getting its own but I haven't used in yet in my current workflow - but its coming! Some software is just linked to from this page, others have their own as well:

Cyberlink Software - Great setups for video production and a lot more. Philip Staiger (PD Howler) uses this to make his awesome videos
Autodesk - With as little time as I have to use software, this high-end stuff isn't the practical choice. But when you want to go pro....
PD Howler - Oh yeah!!! My favorite image editor to date!
Particle Illusion - amazing particle effects simulator/recorder, now from Boris

Whew! So that's the current list of pages. While a few of them are rather bare, currently just containers or landing pages, they have a lot of content in the works for them and the other pages are looking pretty cool, I think.

...and some of my Carrara forum friends have asked my to put up a "Donate" button of some sort, so I reluctantly made a Donate page. I don't really have a method for taking donations, as such, so I offer some examples there ;)

By

Dartanbeck October 2020 in Carrara Discussion

GENERAL FREEBIE REQUESTS part 3

Hi, I'm having trouble finding alien skin textures for M4/V4/Genesis1. I'm sure I found some on sharecg years ago, but can't find them now.

Cheers.

There's a very wide selection still to be found: to be fair, you didn't specify what sort of alien. Many of them aren't aliens per se, but might do for alien skins in a pinch. I hope that one or more of these will suit your needs.

Mostly V4, but they'll work for the other two without too much fuss (some have textures+, others not so much):

That should give you enough to start with, anyway. And if you see one that looks familiar, by all means, go for it. It might be one of those you misplaced.

By

Eustace Scrubb October 2020 in Freebies

SCI-FI Celebration

A re-visit to the first scene I ever used in Daz, Sci-Fi Bedroom by Stonemason. I have done a quick conversion of the materials to iRay and replaced the bedding with elements from dForce Squishy Mattress and populated it with the two most recent Victoria characters (7 & 8)

By

middle_watch October 2020 in Art Studio

AIUTO...CHI CONOSCE L’ITALIANO? PARTE DODICI

In effetti c'è un intero Thread dove renderizzano V2 e compagnia con IRay, fra le altre cose

The older generation: Victoria 2/3, Michael 2/3 and their children renders - Daz 3D Forums (daz3d.com)

Si, alla fine basta un semplice shader per avere un buon risultato con IRay sui vecchi modelli.

E otto GPU top tier.

By

Imago October 2020 in The Commons

AIUTO...CHI CONOSCE L’ITALIANO? PARTE DODICI

In effetti c'è un intero Thread dove renderizzano V2 e compagnia con IRay, fra le altre cose

The older generation: Victoria 2/3, Michael 2/3 and their children renders - Daz 3D Forums (daz3d.com)

By

Crios October 2020 in The Commons

Anybody knows the model used in the Edwardian Hair for Genesis 3 Female Promo?

I'm pretty sure the characters in those promos are Victoria 7 and Olympia 7. (Not absolutely sure about Olympia, she may have been mixed with something).

By

Matt_Castle October 2020 in The Commons

Vehicles: Real World Equivalents

Personally, I started searching out and listing my vehicles as Real-World Equivalents due to time continuity (in theory). Of course many vehicles offered are of original design, but of the others (and to help save frustration to fellow users) I want to share what I've discovered. Note some may not be accurate (being to an exact year nor model) while others may simply be themed, so feel free to add and/or correct. I'm in the process of organizing, so many I haven't researched and of course much more I do not own. Also note that personally and primarily my research has been into cars (not aircraft nor (sea)ferry). I will try to provide (daz) links to the active (being those available for purchase) products as well.

---Contribution---

kyoto kid
...
https://www.daz3d.com/limousine-prince /Jaguar MK II
https://www.daz3d.com/sports-car-morris / Morgan Plus 8
https://www.daz3d.com/teuf-teuf / Citroen 2CV
https://www.daz3d.com/classic-van-and-props /Citroen H Van
https://www.daz3d.com/retro-small-car / Classic VW Beetle
https://www.daz3d.com/offroad-car / Land Rover SWB & LWB
https://www.daz3d.com/luxury-car-1950 / 1955 Thunderbird
https://www.daz3d.com/immortal-elegance / 1958 Plymouth Fury
https://www.daz3d.com/car-ranger / Range Rover L322
https://www.daz3d.com/spy-car-v12 / Astin Martin DB7 Vantage V-12
https://www.daz3d.com/royal-luxury-limousine / Bentley Mulsanne Grand Limousine (there is also a stretch version)
https://www.daz3d.com/elite-luxury-limousine / Mercedes S Class Limousine.
https://www.daz3d.com/family-car-1950 / 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air 2 door
...
https://www.daz3d.com/majestic-gt / Aston Martin DB5
https://www.daz3d.com/3-wheeler / Morgan Three Wheeler
https://www.daz3d.com/british-farm-pickup / Land Rover 2a-109
https://www.daz3d.com/ladybird / a 50s/60s VW Beetle
https://www.daz3d.com/tl48 / Talbot Largo (one of the race cars I was researching)
...

Ivy
...
This is old But there is the ww2 Army jeep https://www.daz3d.com/wwii-jeep
with extra textures https://www.daz3d.com/grungy-jeeps
...

doubledeviant
...
Llamaghini Gallopngo / Lamborghini Gallardo (2003–2013)
Llamaghini Amenazador Version 2 / Lamborghini Aventador (2011-2021)
Llamaghini Amenazador Version 2 Roadster / Lamborghini Aventador (2011-2021)
...

Haruchai
...
https://www.daz3d.com/road-trip-hippy-van
VW Camper Van
https://www.daz3d.com/the-rolling-egg
The Rolling Egg is 'inspired by' either the Heinkel Trojan or BMW Isetta but is so stylised as to not be an actual match to any actual 3 wheeler I can find
...
https://www.daz3d.com/light-tactical-vehicle
HMMWV
https://www.daz3d.com/military-gp
Another Jeep
...

Serene Night & billyben_0077a25354
...
https://www.daz3d.com/pick-em-up-truck \ 1979 Chevrolet/GMC K-2500 base model pickup
...

Haruchai & Jabba
...
https://www.daz3d.com/nil-731-military-utility-truck \ Zil 157
...

The Blurst of Times
...
DarkEdge's Merkava is... an IDF Merkava (hahaha). It's the Merkava Mk. 4, with active countermeasures on the sides of the turret. Pretty sweet model.
https://www.daz3d.com/merkava-tank
ile-avalon's "Light Battle Tank" is a Russian BMP-1, I think. (The description says 73mm 2A28 Grom, which is what the BMP-1 has, and not the BMP-2.)
https://www.daz3d.com/light-battle-tank
Mely3d's "Missile Launcher SA-6" is a Russian 2K12 Kub, which is designated "SA-6" by NATO.
https://www.daz3d.com/missile-launcher-sa-6
...

MarkH said:

https://www.daz3d.com/fg-car-wash ; FG Sports Car is a Maserati Gran Turismo

---In Question---
https://www.daz3d.com/army-truck-1930 \ Model-AA (ford | 1930) / GAZ-AA / GMC T-30

By

GuyGenesis October 2020 in The Commons

AI is going to be our biggest game changer

Artificial Intelligence will be Victoria 11 saying: "No way I'm going to do THAT pose for you! You pervert! And buy me some better clothes while you're at it. I've got nothing to wear!"

Haha

By

nicstt October 2020 in The Commons

Where to get these soccer outfits in this product?

^Those are poses, not textures. Not sure about where to get a soccer uniform (though I'd like one) - last one I've seen is for M4 and V4:

https://www.daz3d.com/soccer-set-for-victoria-4

https://www.daz3d.com/soccer-form-and-shoes

They could be fitted via clones if you have those. Something like: https://www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-autofitting-clones-and-clothing-smoothers-for-genesis-3-male-s and https://www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-autofitting-clones-and-clothing-smoothers-for-genesis-3-female-s can transfer clothing to Genesis 3 and after converting to Genesis 3, the outfits can then be auto-fitted to Genesis 8 with DS's built-in clones.

By

Silent Winter October 2020 in Product Suggestions

AI is going to be our biggest game changer

Artificial Intelligence will be Victoria 11 saying: "No way I'm going to do THAT pose for you! You pervert! And buy me some better clothes while you're at it. I've got nothing to wear!"

Can we make a request that DAZ stops at Victoria 10?

By

PerttiA October 2020 in The Commons

AI is going to be our biggest game changer

Artificial Intelligence will be Victoria 11 saying: "No way I'm going to do THAT pose for you! You pervert! And buy me some better clothes while you're at it. I've got nothing to wear!"

By

Sempie October 2020 in The Commons

Do Venders UVMaps half to be stacked ?

Nope -- That does not explain it...

OBJ can, and as always has been able to create and use stacked UV maps.

Content creation/usage is a concert of multiple parts that need to come together for everything to work as expected.

Creating the individual UV maps that will all share the same UV space that becomes the stacked maps is just one part of the process -- UV map assignment is just as important, otherwise you might believe it doesn't do it, or doesn't work.

And, as others have pointed out, UV maps, whether stacked or UDIM are not the same as UV islands and overlapping UV islands -- But, all UV maps must have assignment with all facets/polygons via MAT designations.

Look at Daz3D's own Victoria 4 for instance -- You will see that every stacked UV is assigned to a different MAT designation - i.e. Body_1, Head_2, Arms_Legs_3, etc. (not correct naming - just example). The important part is the _1, _2, _3 -- That is telling you those are the individual UV maps, and the assigned UV islands reside on those UV maps within the UV space

Those are the individual UV maps that are stacked, but assigned to different parts of the mesh.

@RorrKonn : As Stonemason has pointed out, you probably want to create your content with UDIM UV mapping which basically duplicates the UV space in a grid so you can have all your pretty UV maps spread out and do not share the same UV space.

By

DaremoK3 October 2020 in The Commons

How Many Pages in Your Product Library?

184. Oldest item still on the list = Victoria 4.2 base - 2008

By

andolaurina October 2020 in The Commons

Convert texture from Blender to DAZ IRay

You may take as example the G8F skin to see how you can use the uber shader for your own characters. Not that it is the only way nor the best, but that's a start. For more advanced setups you may like to check Victoria 8 or other characters you like. Then you may also be interested to the photorealism discussion in the daz studio forum.

Be aware that getting nice skins from iray is not easy that's one of the reasons to pass to blender.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/313401/iray-photorealism

By

Padone October 2020 in Blender Discussion

How much is it normal to spend when starting out with Daz Studio?

I went 'Hell for Leather' when I first started and now wish I could go back in a time machine and smack myself silly. I bought like a kid in a candy shop and thinking half the stuff I bought was actually essential...BEFORE I knew the difference between 3DL and Iray, and why the Gen charcters and Michael and Victoria had all these crazy numbers that didn't seem to coincide (and who was David?)...madness! But now I only buy if there is a sale on gift cards at 30% off. I still spend oodles, but it at least gives my spending a bit of gravitas.

By

Fungible User October 2020 in The Commons

Michael 4 / Victoria 4 to Genesis 8 Converter

No, this won't work for hair or clothes, they're neither morphs or a textures.

For hair you can usually get good results by simply parenting it:

load the hair while figure is in zero pose, don't "fit" it to the figure.
manually position it at the right place.
If needed, use a bit if scaling or morphs to make it fit better
parent the hait to the figure's head, now it will follow the head when the figure is posed

There is also a hair batch converter in the store: https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-hair-converter-from-michael-4-to-genesis-8-male

For clothing you can use autofit. The default G8M doesn't include a clone for M4, but Genesis 1 does and G8M has a clone for G1.
So you can do the following:

Autofit the clothes to G1
Save the G1 version in your library as a figure asset
Autofit the G1 version to G8M

Since there are 2 conversion steps results may not always be good.

Other options:

M4/V4 clones for G8: https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8

Clothing batch converter: https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-clothing-converter-from-michael-4-to-genesis-8-male

By

Leana October 2020 in New Users

Michael 4 / Victoria 4 to Genesis 8 Converter

I'd like to say Thank you for the reply It's appreciated and I'll try to investigate the programs(?) you mentioned in Daz and see when I can get them. I really want to move Vincent to G8M So it will look potentially better and have more options overall including clothing etc...as I tend to get more gen 8 models/bundels.

That being said, I'm surpised one of the daz orginal or Vendor Associates haven't made a one click convert program for this yet. It's money in the bank!

So let me repeat this to make sure I understand:

First: https://www.daz3d.com/legacy-uvs-for-genesis-8-michael-4 does NOT convert M4 Textures, it merely PREPARES the G8M model to Recieve the Texture so it will Fit the G8M properly?

Second: I need to get the Vincent textures/materials and convert them to .duf format so then I can apply them to the Prepared G8M Legacy UV model.

-How do I convert material files such as !!Vincent_Mat.pz2 to the DUF format? These are what I found so far:

- https://www.daz3d.com/m4-skins-batch-converter-to-genesis-2-male-s which requires ---> https://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-for-genesis-2-male ***Not sure if this will this be an issue. I'm not seeing any M4 to G3M converters. Will G2M textures work on the Legacy G8M prep?***

- https://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-skins-auto-converter-for-genesis-2-male-s which also requires the above M4 for g2m seems to be by same person but not sure what the difference is since they both seem to beable to batch convert. Can anyone explain the difference? I must be missing something.

***I've included the V4 versions here incase someone was interested***

- https://www.daz3d.com/v4-skins-batch-converter-to-genesis-2-female-s which requires--> https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-for-genesis-2-female

Third: I need to convert the Morphs/add-ons for M4/Freak4 vincent to a G2M/G3M via GenX: so these programs

- https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2 to-->

- https://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-2 or https://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-3 (I suggest G3M as Xtransfer App below does only G3 to G8)

- These might be required, though not sure: https://www.daz3d.com/v4-and-m4-shapes-for-genesis & https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-female

***This one is just extra conent incase someone was interested: https://www.daz3d.com/genx-addon-gen3-bundle ***

Using the Above programs you now have a G3M Morph then convert AGAIN to G8M Morph via Xtransfer:

- https://www.daz3d.com/xtransfer--genesis-3-to-genesis-8-converter ***I Couldn't find any G2M to G8M converters so Make sure to convert to G3M***

-I tryed looking up the RSSY products (which look wicked awesome) but the focus for them was more on autofiting Hair/Clothing and Iray/3Delight convertion. I saw no character morph conversions but maybe I misread something, please feel free to correct me on this and Add a link here so others have access to it too!

Finally your ready to combine Everything...(so I assume)

Take Legacy UV apply to Gen 8 (prep) + converted mats/textures to .duf format + Converted Morphs/add-ons (injections?) = Vincent on Gen 8 model?

Lastly (assuming I wrote this properly and everything converts over smoothly) what is the best way to go about "saving" the character to avoid having to do all t his work again? Should I be making extra save folders for all these mats/textures/morphs etc....where do they get stored (do I store them?) will they show in smart content in future? I'd like to save it as a future "Actor" or character.

Thanks to the brave soul who ventures to answering this post.

Sincerely,

Cheetahka.

By

Cheetahka October 2020 in New Users

Welcome to Hatsune Miku Anime Manga Cafe ☕

Continuing to our halloween batch here is Z knight

Character:

Momiji Victoria 3: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/momiji-character-kit-for-v3/28601

Clothes: Zknight by Batlabs: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/z-knight/24847

Skin: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/a3---carmelita/47335

By

Hatsune Miku October 2020 in Art Studio

Committing to just one Base Model Group

I stepped away from DAZ for a few months, or years (I lose track of time.) When I returned, DAZ introduced a series of "mature" characters. I was ecstatic, because, for a decade or more, old folks were pretty much ignored. Suddenly there were many characters, available in Pro Packs even! We had plenty of supporting products, such as walkers, etc. I like getting the Genesis 8 characters.

But I want variety. So I look for old folks characters in Genesis (1), Genesis 3, "4th Generation characters such as Michael and Victoria 4. Sometimes I focus only on getting stuff for Michael 4 & Victoria 4. I dig around to find the characters, hair, beards, clothes and poses. I bought several different items today, and all were for Victoria 4, Michael 4 and Genesis (version 1.)

I think they stepped up their game with old folks in the Genesis 8 line and I love it. There truly is plenty of diversity now, especially if you can this with the older stuff.

By

ScarletX1969 October 2020 in The Commons

Stellar League Assault Suit for Genesis 8

Hi,

Inspired by the Mandalorian armor and accessories (jetpack, flame thrower bracer), I'm interested to get something similar to this Victoria 4 product : Stellar League Assault Suit

By

Noah LGP October 2020 in Product Suggestions

Notifications

Dartanbeck.com

Carrara Zone

Pre-Production Phase

Production Phase

DAZ ZONE

Do It In Post

Gallery

The Software

Adding to Cart…