So, it was recently pointed out to me by MDO2010 that the Carrara FAQ section above had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in it. 

Let's change that. 

Please post in this thread, questions you have about Carrara and I'll build out the FAQ section. 

Many thanks. 

Nice thread !
My first question is: what can one make more and better in the spline modeler than in the vertex modeler ?

@DUDU.car, Answered.

I had a first time experience last night.  A model of a sheet of paper had a texture map with texts and images.  A small square edge section of it was sort of translucent, something not in the texture map.  It took me a while, but I finally got it to render correctly by changing the "Filtering" drop down menu in the texture editor from "Fast Mip Map" (the default) to "Sampling".  Other choices are "Summed Area Table" and "Gaussian Filtering".   I've never changed these before, it was just random fix trys.  What are these parameters, and when should they be used?  The manual (V.7, sheesh) says the quality changes, but does not even mention "Fast Mip Map".

@ Steve K. Answered.

@ Steve K. Answered.

Excellent, very thorough.  Thanks.

 my question to Dr Bremmer is.... :)

I think I have asked it before....

I would like to change all the shaders in my scene (or just selected ones) so that the original color parameter (a texture map) in the shader tree would be replaced by an operator (eg mixer) that had trhe original texture map as source one and an other texture map as source two.

what would be the best way of doing this  within Carrara - assuming it is possible ?

@headwax, if I understood the question, it's answered. :D

 thanks Dr Mark ;) Looking forward to checking that out ! Obliged for your kindness. Cheers!

I have created an original figure in Poser that utilizes many morphs and EasyPose. Everything works fine in Carrara but my easypose dials (which are essentially read as morph dependencies) are very stubborn to increase or decrease values in the parameter sliders, I have to enter ridiculously high values in. How can parameter sliders in Carrara be adjusted in terms of sensitivity? I would like to create a .car file from this figure with Carrara materials but will only do so if I can have similar functionality in both apps.

Using 8.1 pro

@EldritchCellar, Now that's a big question - bigger than a short answer will do in the FAQ!

I suspect that EasyPose codifies the dial values on export as a certain manner that is misinterpreted by Carrara 8.1 and there is nothing that can be done through Carrara to ingest the export in a manner that will change that. I'd suggest either utilizing  C8.5Pro to ingest and test, or running the file through DAZ Studio Pro's rigging and then into Carrara to see if that will remedy the functionality.

(Important note: I have zero experience with EasyPose but am familiar with similar issues with other software that I work with)

Thanks Mark. Yeah, DS and Carrara 8.5 won't run on my ancient mac workstation. I do all of my figure rig set ups in Poser 8. Haven't yet dived into Carrara's skinning methods. Tried opening another EZPose figure that I made of less complexity in Carrara and it failed to load the cascading erc sliders altogether. Shrugs. I think maybe easypose is going to be a Poser centric feature in terms of function. The figure Im trying to fix up for Carrara has over 120 actors.

Still curious about what to edit to change slider sensitivity. I'm assuming I would have to edit the .car file itself. I'm pretty comfortable with text editing poser native files. Which brings me to a very rudimentary question, How do I save an imported .cr2 to the browser so that it is saved as a .car file? Haven't cracked the manual for this one and all topic web searches lead me to Genesis blah blah.

Thanks

@EldritchCellar, You can't save a .cr2 as a Carrara file. (at least I'm unaware of any exporter that would provide that functionality) The only method I'm aware of is to save a zero pose as an .obj and then totally re-rig it. Of course that couldn't be distributed since it's a license issue then. But for personal use, it would be fine. 

When we drag and drop a character in " Objects/My objects" browser, isn't a .car file ?

Edit; ... a character loaded in Carrara.

@Dudu.car, I believe it's a Carrara scene that references the .cr2 file. So, it's not a stand-alone Carrara file per se. 

Thanks, a scene file will do, maybe as you said a file path reference. The figures that I want to save as .car are my own creations so any distribution would be my IP, just curious about Carrara native files at this point. I've done some digging around in .cbr files for custom brushes that I've made (to add wizard functionality) but have yet to crack open a .car file to determine how Poser content is written into the structure.

Anyway, thanks again.

What I have noticed is that .cbr files contain a lot of indecipherable code but also generally contain blocks of text with a file path reference and editable lines of text that are specific to modifier settings at the state of saving (spacing and fall off and such in a brush example). It was suggested at Daz forum that .cbr are simply browser files but I've found that states are also written into the file in an editable manner. Will check to see how this works in relation to .cr2 and embedding.

Sorry, one more question (topic of the thread started by a Carrara guru, no? :)

Are Carrara plants redistributable in the sense that something made with a primitive is?

Also, how does one add custom built leaves and such to the plant editor, and can these custom parts be built externally? If so, must they follow a certain template guideline?

 Mark, I read your answer again thank you. Yes it does answer the question kind of :) The mention of the Gaussian blur in the first section gives me an idea to try, so thank you for that as well ! Obliged for your kindness! cheers from here. :)

@Eldritch, I'm crazy busy at the moment. Good questions that I'll answer in the FAQ when able. The short answers are, yes, carefully, and sort-of  - it depends if you are building geometry or simple texture maps.

Ok. Thanks Mark. I can draw certain conclusions from your replies. I'll wait for your faq entries on the plants topic, I think the questions I've asked really aren't well accounted for in documentation or general knowledge amongst user base.

Edit, I was thinking custom geometry in my second question. My use of the term template probably brought to mind textures though... in any case, looking forward.