Fenric's Tools

I am putting some of these tools to Constant use, while others I still need to explore more - as with many things in Carrara, both things that are included in Carrara Pro as well as after-market supplements. All in all, however, when I was going from laptop to desktop to my home-built workstation I ended up reinstalling Carrara a few times and, each time, if I tried messing around in Carrara before installing my Fenric tools, Carrara just didn't feel right. Fenric has certainly played a huge role in helping me to achieve my goals.

Here's some general information on the tools that used to be sold at Daz 3d 

(an article I've written while they were still available at Daz 3d, so please take that into context)

EDIT: I have now added links to the 32 bit and 64 bit files for Mac and Windows. Simply put the zip(s) into your DIM Downloads folder (public Documents > DAZ 3D > installmanager on Windows) and run DIM for an effortless install 

Furthermore, Omega Man has offered up the entire Daz3d Fenric plugin collection as a single download  Here

As an added safeguard, the collection is also now hosted at the Carrara Cafe. This from rk66:

With Fenric's permission you can find now the download of his collection at CarraraCafe "Carrara Plug-ins Collection by Fenric" (about 30 MB). The zip file contains also PDF files with more information.

Info > https://carraracafe.com/fenrics-plugins-now-free/

Download here > https://carraracafe.com/download/8967/

Details

Control a Value

..... With a Value

.........From any object in your scene!

The Enhanced Remote Control suite is a set of behavior modifiers and scene commands that work together to add much needed functionality and control to your animation workflow. It provides the basic functionality of Poser's ERC for creating joint-controlled movement within Carrara. But it also provides so much more, giving you the building blocks to rapidly create advanced, realistic animation.

Control them all: Shaders, light values, position, rotation, morph settings - even other modifiers!

Contains

• Commands

  • Add ERC Modifier

  • Create ERC Chain

  • Add Pin Modifier

  • Delete Keyframes

  • Remove Duplicate Keyframes

  • Jitter Keyframes

  • Change Morph Limits

  • Property Explorer

• Modifiers

  • Pin

  • ERC

Features

• Add ERC Modifier and Add Pin Modifier allow you to add the modifiers to the joints of imported Poser figures, which are otherwise locked out of having 3rd party modifiers added.

• Create ERC Chain allows you to create a chain of basic ERC modifiers. The objects in the chain do not have to be children in the tree!

• Delete Keyframes gives you the ability to do a “deep delete” of all of the current keyframes for an object. Set the scene time to the keyframe to be deleted, and select one or more objects to clear. You will be presented with a choice of “Selected Figure” (the default), where every item in each selected animation group will have the current keyframe cleared. “Selected and Children” where only the selected subtrees will be cleared, and “Selected Only”, where only the topmost selected items will be cleared.

• Remove Duplicate Keyframes analyzes the timelines of the selected items. Any keyframe that is identical to both the preceeding and following frames will be deleted. You will be presented with a choice of “Selected Figure” (the default), where every item in each selected animation group will have the current keyframe cleared. “Selected and Children” where only the selected subtrees will be cleared, and “Selected Only”, where only the topmost selected items will be cleared.

• Jitter Keyframes operates on the currently selected keyframes. They will be randomly moved forward or back in time within the limits specified, adding realism to your animation.

• Change Morph Limits allows you to select a morph target and change the minimum and maximum allowed levels. Use this to stop the irritating “snap-back” behavior of morphs on imported Poser content when you attempt to enter a number that is out of range.

• The Property Explorer is there because sometimes it can be difficult to guess what you are trying to do with the ERC modifier. The Property Explorer can help guide you by showing you a list that contains the same set of properties as are available in the ERC setup. Clicking on a property will display its current value, and you have the ability to set a new value by entering it in the “New Value” box and clicking “Update”.

• The Pin Modifier attempts to fix the location of an item in XYZ space. It cannot override the motion of parent items, so it is a best-effort lock rather than an absolute one.

• The Enhanced Remote Control Modifier is the main feature of the product. It allows you to drive any animateable parameter using another parameter as the controller. It is philosophically similar to the ERC facility in Poser, but it is far more powerful. The Carrara ERC modifier can accept any object in your scene as the source of the controller: other figures, lights, cameras, helpers – allowing for limitless combinations. You can even set up your own animation UI with helper objects! and Create dynamic special effects!

• In addition to the normal value operations, it also provides:

  • Late Start: you do not have to start the control at keyframe zero! Specify your starting time.

  • Cut Off: you do not have to try to work around the control for your entire scene – make it stop when you want it to!

  • Delay: Similar to late start, Delay prevents the control from happening for a given number of keyframes. Unlike late start, Delay remembers what should have happened and plays it back!This is quite simply indispensable for realistic animation of tails, ropes, and chains!

  • Decay: you can cause the control to decay over time, becoming less and less.

  • Grow: you can cause the control to be amplified over time, getting larger and larger.

  • Oscillate: you can set the amount of the control to oscillate over time

• Absolute Mode: In absolute mode, the value of the control is used at the point in time it is needed, and the value being controlled is directly modified. The figure being controlled should start at zero pose for best results.

• Relative Mode: In relative mode, the difference in the value of the control from the value it had when the ERC modifier first started working to the value at the current time is used, rather than the exact value. This allows you to do some manual posing of the figure being controlled

• Name That Modifier: You can specify a title for the ERC Modifier, overriding the default of “ERC” so that you can easily keep track of which is which after you have added multiple copies of the ERC modifier to the same object.

This is one of those that I really need to practice using more! This thing is awesome! 

The incredibly talented animator, Faba, has released some fine tutorial guides for the Carrara ERC plugin in her ShareCG Gallery HERE (req's free account to download)

• Stack Tweener Ever wish you could oscillate along the bezier spline? This will let you! Stack up to six different sub-tweeners with configurable percentage weight for blending. Need more than six? Just stack in another stack!

• Clear Timeline Command I gave you a "deep" delete with ERC, now here's its brother: Select a keyframe or tweener, and this command will clear out the entire timeline that it is sitting on. THERE IS NO UNDO!

• TowardAway Shader Ever wanted to shade the two sides of a polygon different colors? With this simple shader, you can. White when the normal is pointing toward the camera, black when it is pointing away - this is great for simulating linings in clothing (which is nearly always one-sided).

• Color Balance Shader Is that texture map just a tad on the green side? Colors too vibrant? Have a great procedural stack that's just a bit too dim? This simple shader lets you adjust R, G, B, H, S, V values of the color result of a sub-shader.

• Color Separation Shader So suppose you want just one channel out of the available color? This separation has two modes: pure, which will extract the red, green, or blue channels. And greyscale, which will give a grayscale representation of Red, Green, Blue, Alpha, Hue, Luminosity, and Saturation. Optionally adjust the brightness of the extracted layer, and even invert the value. 

• Color Merge Shader The opposite of Color Separation, this shader allows you to build a new color based on the input of four sub shaders - one for each channel (RGBA or HLSA)

It basically (and quickly) pretends to add whatever is selected into the browser (without adding it to the browser) and drags it back into the scene - really fast! But wait... there's a lot more!

This also adds the aforementioned Unlock Figure and Restore Figure! Wanna add a custom morph zone into a locked figure? Unlock it - change it - Restore it! Yup!

We also get the Set Figure Visibility command which, as I've started this tool's description with, allows us to hide entire chains of hierarchy within a figure with a single click! I gotta tell John and Misty!!!

It also adds Change Rotation, which is a command which will go through the whole figure and change ALL of the joint rotations from Carrara's default Quaternion to Angles! So if you've ever loaded in a figure that ends up looking like it's tied in a knot as soon as you start working with it, you now know how to fix it! :)

Details

The Posing Toolkit 3 gives you the power you need to get your work done, unlocking and enabling a number of critical features that allow you to tap into the awesome potential of Carrara!

Have you ever set up the perfect background figure: clothes, hair, accessories, got everything all set and then remembered that Carrara just won't let you duplicate it? Oh, the menu option is there, teasing you - but it's disabled! The Replicator just won't cut it: you need individual poses! Enter the Tree Duplicator: duplicate anything and everything that can be selected in the scene tree!

You've got a nifty new bit of conforming clothing, but there aren't any morph areas! Morphing a posed figure is great, but you need to be able to set the stuff up, right? The new Unlock Figure command opens up the power locked away behind those greyed out menu options. (And you can put things back to the way Carrara expects with the Restore Figure command)

Sometimes, you've just got to hide things! But clicking the awkwardly-located "Visible" checkbox on imported content can be a chore. Just imagine hiding a hand with the fingers... oy! The new Set Figure Visibility command will do the hard work for you, activating or deactivating an entire chain of body parts with the click of a button.

Do rotation options have your custom figures spinning around? Or are Carrara's defaults turning your people into pretzels? Carrara's default "Quarternion" controller is powerful, but also incompatible with just about everything. The Change Rotation command comes to the rescue, changing everything from a single joint to an entire skeleton to the much more compatible "Angles" controller.

What's Included and Features

• Five new scene commands

  • Tree Duplicator

  • Unlock Figure

  • Restore Figure

  • Change Rotation

  • Set Figure Visibility

From the Fox Den 

A while after Daz removed a bunch of Carrara-specific content and its vendors from the store, Fenric came into the forum offering up his plugins, and even an offer for someone to carry the torch via his Source Code for ALL of his products, both released and experiments. He certainly will be missed. The post with his offer is HERE

In case his site ever goes down, here is the page he's offered up, and I've also included links to those plugins directly within the text. Here's what Fenric said:

THE STORE IS CLOSED

You may download the “key” files from here:

All Product Keys

NOT FOR GENESIS

These products were all written before the train-wreck known as Genesis was created by DAZ. Very few of them work well, and many do not work at all, when using that particular figure.

Genesis is NOT SUPPORTED.

Edit by Dartanbeck - Although Not Supported, I still use many of these plugins with Genesis - I just do so with caution

Trial versions will generally operate for 10 minutes before automatically being disabled. Certain products may not lend themselves to a time-based limitation, and will have other restrictions. In order to enable full functionality, a license key must be purchased at the store.

The store is closed. Download license keys here: All Product Keys

There is no separate file for purchased products. Your purchase gets you a Download the license key files.

These are the final versions. There will be no more updates from here.

The store is closed. Download license keys here: All Product Keys

Carrara 7: Windows Vista or newer, Mac OS Intel

Carrara 8 or 8.5, 32-bit: Windows XP or newer, Mac OS Intel

Carrara 8 or 8.5, 64-bit: Windows Vista or newer, Mac OS Intel

IMPORTANT: WINDOWS USERS

These products all require the Visual C++ runtime libraries of varying ages: It is best if you have 2010, 2012, and 2013 installed.

Get them here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2977003

IMPORTANT: NO SUPPORT

The store is closed. There is NO SUPPORT for these downloads anymore. They may crash, erase your scene, or make you start to like Sun Chips. Download and use at your own risk.

Help! Where is it?

Commands show up in the Assembly room’s “Edit” menu. If you have more than one of mine, it should be in the “Fenric” sub-menu.

Shaders are similar: if you only have one, it will be at the top level. Otherwise, it should appear in the “Fenric” sub-menu of the shader insert.

Most commands require something to be selected first. Try to select the item or items you want to change – the commands try to figure out what you meant to do, but it really is easier to pick the right thing the first time.

Exporters use the File Menu, “Export…” option. DO NOT USE “Save As…”!

Fenric, my friend,

For what it's worth, I'm very glad that I was able to support your cause throughout our journey together. I'm proud to be able to keep these amazing plugins alive for the future of Carrara users, but in the same light I'm very glad that  bought them as they came out - they're worth every penny (and much more) than what I've paid!

We had some great discussions together back in the day; you, me and Faba, and I'll cherish the memories forever!

Take care my good friend and thank you so much for allowing us to continue spreading these amazing abilities to our favorite 3D Suite!

Dartanbeck