I put 'Project Gemini' in C3 extension. I inserted vertex modeler and click 'Cancel' to test the demo. I did not get any symmetrical with my mouse pointer. What did I miss?

Attached Link: RTOM

Did you add the Gemini modifier in the Assembly Room?

Falconperigot thank you for pointing me to the modifier in the Assemly Room. I realized that the 'Project Gemini' isn't for me because it is too confusing to use it. I thought it was symmeterical pointer plug in in the modelling room. It was actually just an automated union boolean plug in. $29.95 for it? eh. Janitor expected to make profit over this simple plug ins like this one. He want $359.45 for all his plug-ins to end users, this is equivent to a core software with advanced scripts. Only few of his plug-ins are worth to buy is 'Power Pack' everything else is just scrape collections that manipulated with Carrara's functions.

Thanks for sharing that.

Waldo, the DCG plugins are not for everybody; that's why Eric sells them separately and why he provides a trial version of each one. In my experience they are worth every cent; not only do the one's I use (and I don't need or use all of them)do the job well but they save me a lot of time - if you are a professional then that means a lot. As you imply, it's possible to do some of the things that the plugins do without them but it would take a heck of a lot longer. On top of that Eric often adds a new feature (such as the 'apply shader to selected items' feature for Shader Ops)without charging existing users AND he is always happy to give help or advice here.

Well I get bit annoyed when I get the demo like this one and expected that it would give me symmeterical mouse pointers in the modelling room. Symmeterical mouse pointers would save me alot time than this automated union boolean. BTW there is mirror symmeterical in C3 that works the same as this plug in already. ZBrush is nice proggy but it is not my style to use 12 hour daily. Carrara is too comfy to use because most of the interferes make sense and focus on modeling. ZBrush's intefere like 'Twight Zone' I do not like to get warped with it. One major reason I quit on ZBrush is because of export problem with Carrara when you try to convert it into vertex.

I still disagree with you. You would barely make a human head with Gemini. Do you own a copy of ZBrush? If not then you wouldn't know what it is like to model a realistic head with symmeterical pointers. I made numberous of stuff out of ZBrush because of ZSphere and Symmerical functions unleashed the power of modeling speed than any application I have used. Gemini (automated union boolean, not symmeterical) need to stay down in the grave. I will email to Eovia and ask them to fix import obj problem with zBrush. ZBrush cost $400 and it worth every penny because of power of modeling and painting.

Waldo, I wasn't arguing with you, simply trying to point out the advantages of the Gemini plugin. To my mind it does exactly what it claims. If you choose not to use it, that's your business, but don't dismiss a piece of software that you haven't learnt how to use.

"I thought it was symmeterical pointer plug in in the modelling room." It is not. You were wrong. Now get over it.

Waldo,

You're right, for the most part Gemini just automates the "duplicate with symmetry, line up, weld, fix all the holes, rinse, and repeat" process that is traditional symmetrical modeling in Carrara. It does come with a cut-away tool, but it's focus is the process above. It is not a traditional symmetrical mouse pointer style tool that some other packages have, but I never claimed it was.

The idea came about during the C1 beta when I modeled an entire human figure. Probably 1/3rd of that time was spent doing the tedious synching up the sides so I could do test renders and could visualize where I was at in the figure. It occurred to me that I could automate that and save people who do that style modeling a bunch of time which of course is one of the biggest points of using a computer, remove the tedious, easily automated tasks so the artist can get down to doing the art part.

I have a few customers who really love Gemini because of the time it saves. One customer in particular thought as you did that the symmetrical mouse pointer style tool was the only way to go. After the first time he used it, he was hooked, specifically because it wasn't a symmetrical mouse pointer kind of tool. When he could get inside the mesh to move points around without having to play the show/hide polygons game he realized that for some problems it was actually a better solution.

I put Gemini in the same category as Cognito, they automate and save time. You can manually do all the things that Gemini and Cognito do for you, but if you're a professional getting paid for your time, you'll probably make up the purchase cost in enhanced productivity on the first job.

I have a real world analogy if that helps. I build furniture as a hobby. With a circular saw, drill, sander, and chisels, there are very few things in the world you can't build (assuming you can get dimensional lumber). I took some time off back in December to build a new mission style headboard. I put it together using mortise and tenon joints, and the slots to bolt it to the frame were basically long deep mortises. I did the mortises by drilling out the bulk of the material and cleaning it up with a chisel. It was long and tedious work, probably took me 4 hours total. I have to do another one and this time I bought a bench top mortiser. It was a relatively expensive tool for something that does just 1 thing, but it will take that 4 hour job and make it 10 minutes. In this first project it won't quite pay for itself, but it will in the first year and I'm just a hobbyist.

Regards,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D plug-ins for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

I like it. I've found it useful numerous times. Thanks for a great plugin Eric. Brian

Eric I am curious were you limited to make this plug in because of limited language references and could not make script in the modeling room?

Waldo, There is no SDK for the Vertex Modeler so tighter integration is not an option from a 3rd party plug-in. If you want the type of symmetrical modeling you're talking about, you need to talk to eovia and perhaps they might add it in a future version of Carrara. Regards, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild 3D plug-ins for Carrara http://digitalcarversguild.com

i have nearly all plugins from DCG,okay,i dont use them all but im satisfied with every plugin i bought.the plugins are all very very helpfull and they are self explanatory and very easy to understand,i would never talk bad about something that i cant understand,one rule for me is that i have to understand what i dont like or like before i say it is useless or not.you can read everything you need to know about the plugins on erics site,the informations about the plugins are very clear.Eric makes very good plugins and i cant live without them. i have and use zbrush(1.55b and of course 2) too,after making heads and other models with zbrush for 10 month i decided to model my models the traditional way with amapi pro and carrara 3,i can say that i can model a face in amapi in 15-18 minutes and a very detailed head in 3-5 hours.for a good looking head in zbrush i need the same time.zbrush is for me now only a texture weapon and sometimes a additional modeler.zbrush makes fun but i prefer the traditional way.carrara,zbrush and amapi works very good together for me,i have no problems. BTW carrara is not zbrush and zbrush is not carrara.they are very diffrent and that is good!

Well thats fine as long as if you are happy with the scrap collections Eric made that already has in Carrara. But I am not happy with it because I want to see that Carrara get more advanced modeling with symmeterical pointers. I won't buy Gemini just for the automated union boolean because it gives me no benefit nor Carrara. I would try every effort to keep Gemini away from Carrara as possible in future versions because it have no future. Symmeterical pointers is more advanced and real time modeling on any sides. So can you say no to it? SDK should be provided in any Carrara's rooms; Vertex, Spline, Metaball,.... So we can make it more advanced Carrara and give it longer to live and good investment for customers businesses.

Waldo, quit sniveling. That is almost all you are doing in any post I read. Your points may be valid, but the way you express them sounds like you open, a box bush a butten and when what YOU expect to happen doesn't, you start throwing things arround, crying and calling people (or there product) names. Ask questions make sugestions in a constructive maner. The plugins and software are what they are; you like you buy, you don't then don't.
"...the scrap collections Eric made..." not nice, puts people off.
"I would try every effort to keep Gemini away from Carrara as possible in future versions because it have no future." agin not nice or constructive; and very arogant (make people ignor your good points).

"I want to see that Carrara get more advanced modeling with symmeterical pointers" good point, why detract from it with the othe comments?

Have a nice day

I said his 3 plug ins are good in my previous post. I want powerpack too and I am drooling for it.

Powella yap at the wall by urself. I can say anything I want because I want Carrara to be serious 3D modeling application not just some scrap from garbage like this gemini plug in used union boolean function.

hey waldo,sale carrara and buy something else but leave your comments somewhere else.if you dont like what you have or test then it must be the wrong software for you.

Who said I dont like Carrara? Why do you alway want to cross my boundary? All I said is this Gemini is crap and you need to get it crossed to your head that it was my opinion not yours.

its alright and i dont want to cross your boundary. Waldo have fun.

Thank you

Waldo, you are right, you can say anything you want, but so far no one seams to take you very seriously or think your inate rambling are worth squat. I suspect your plug in problems are all user related and not product related anyway. EVERY program out there has plug-ins that some one thinks are worthless. Some are free some are not, some you just have to be smart enough to see how it might be used effitiently. YOU thought Gemini was a plug-in for one thing when it was for a different purpose- who's falt is it that someone didn't read rout mind, creat a plug in that did what you wanted and then priced it at what you felt like spending? You want it you make it. When I talk to you, it is the same as a wall

LOL I would want to buy stocks on Eovia if I can predict that it is good investment. It is same as I own a copy of Carrara to play with and use it for business. I can try to trash bad plug ins off the street to make it easy to shop around. Have you been in New York City?

Like in Wall-do, sorry couldn't resist. :-)

Ppowellaa's point is kind of like saying you don't like Adobe Illustrator, because it doesn't have a cloning brush like Photoshop. So Illustrator is crap? Your logic is flawed. You use one to do cretin things and the other to do the other things. If you don't have use for Gemini, that doesn't mean is crap, it just means that you can not use it, period. Now if nobody could use it, then I would have to agree with you, it would be carp, but that is not the case, now is it? Just like Eric stated, this particular plug-in dose not do anything that Carrara doesn't do by it's self, but it certainty saves time since you don't have to do the extra steps to achieve the same result.

I do not care! I know what modeling is. Gemini is really an anoying plug-in because you only can see half of it in modeling room and full model in small preview. LOL what funny thinkers people like you.

Waldo At least we think. You have one of the worst casses of mental constipation with oral dirrhea I have seen in years. It will probably improve once puberty finishes.

You must be feelin real bad. Ohh poor powellaa who cant think straight.

[Scoffs]

I love Gemini:) I think the benefit I see in it is I modeled one half of a character, and the edge for welding had something like 70-80 points. Now for me to get those to all look right, and because of the design of my model..welding would have been a pain, so using Gemini made the welding easy. Plus being able to see the preview (small as it is) gave me a nice idea on how things were progressing. Personally I find Gemini useful. We each have our own opinion...and I know there are better tools out there, but really I find Gemini works simply and efficiently. It does what it says it is designed to do, and nothing more. Brian

This plug in might be right tool for "Carrara Basics" or "Carrara Funny Farm"

Brian your right,this was one of my first plugin together with agrooves and agrows and i found gemini very useful too.now im using amapi since last year and im only using the spline editor in carrara and dont need gemini at the moment. Cheers Dominik PS:DCG makes very useful plugins anyway.

Would someone be kind enough to close this thread? I really don't see it going anywhere productive at this point.

No this need to keep open it promotes developer to make professional plug ins not funny farm plug ins to advance Carrara and customers' investments.

Waldo, as you're so full of good ideas and you're also a programmer, why don't you make a plugin for Carrara?

good idea falconperigot,cause it is possible to download the carrara studio sdk at eovia for free. http://www.eovia.com/carrara/sdk_car.jsp

I already have SDK. But don't have time to play with it because I have some projects I am mandated to do for my day job and home business. As I posted previously when I asked Eric if SDK contain any references to the other rooms to manipulate with and he said no only in the assembly room with some of interfaces which that is why he is only limited to make Gemini plug in with union boolean function. So I can't make symmeterical pointers in the vertex room and few other things I would like to implement. So with this limited SDK is not worth to work on.

Waldo, Actually you could go as far as to create your own modeler or even a new room, but that is a nasty piece of work. I built one modeler (which was never released) and it was a ton of work just to get the basics working. It would probably be much more productive to just express to eovia how much you really want this feature. There is a terrible lack of Carrara plug-in developers, I know 8, but I think only 4 are currently active and none of us work at it full time. You seem to have very passionate ideas about what is right for Carrara users and if you've got the programming talent, that could be a potent combination. You should give it a try. You may not be able to add symmetrical mouse pointer style modeling to the VM because of limitations in the SDK, but there are all kinds of other problems to be solved. If you have any SDK questions, I'd certainly be happy to help. Regards, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild 3D plug-ins for Carrara http://digitalcarversguild.com

Eric I will consider this after I am done with my projects. Thanks for your offer to help.

Eric have you ever tried to ask for VM or Spline SDK for you to re-create new modeling room?

I've asked for more SDK support in the VM and while they agreed it would be a nice thing, I don't think it was on their priority list to go back and create a VM SDK. They have adopted the philosphy for new stuff, I have noticed that newer SDKs tend to expose the new interfaces. For example in C3, they did expose the interfaces for controlling bones so a plug-in has access to all that stuff and I use it for Anything Grows "Bones Mode". Regards, Eric Winemiller Digital Carvers Guild 3D plug-ins for Carrara http://digitalcarversguild.com