Dartanbeck.com Site Map

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

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 CG Workshop

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

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.

  • Character Shader Basics - Explore the absolute quickest and simplest way to get a Daz Figure's materials up and running in Carrara! A very basic approach with no frills for speedy renders

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!

The Scene - This is where we'll explore using the scenes we've stored with our actors and/or vehicles, etc., to create our animated sequences

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 (video's thumbnail) is Kevin, who was my boss! :) )


Daz Content

Daz 3D Content - Mainly just a container/landing page, but will eventually be really cool!

Daz Studio

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.

Daz Studio Page Quick Map

PC + Experience

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!

Bridging Technology - A new leap in workflow design and implementation

Blender Zone

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

Inspiration

​Downloads

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 ;)