I keep on seeing this question around, "Which should I get, Raydream 5.5 or Lightwave?" or another one that keeps popping up "Which should I upgrade to, Carrara or Lightwave?" I tell you this is no brainer, and I am not trying to be an asshole, but the fact is, if you have the resources, go for lightwave all the way!. It is a complete package and you can go further with it. IT has very little known stabilty problems and has proven to be one of the best solutions in the industry. Now Carrara and Raydream are good, and I do use Carrara to speed up the modeling process but the end product is always going to be Lightwave or 3D studio max as those are my programs of choice. Your's may be different but for those who ask that question as a question of features, Lightwave all the way for the price and features. Now these people will not have to ask anymore.

Well I have access to both lightwave (@work) and Max (@ an artists buddies house) and I hate both of them. The only I like about them is how they treat animation. Lets Face it..The modeler in lightwave Sucks!!! It is totally sucky and the user interface sucks. My boss bought a 10 tape series on training to use it and while I can now get around in it, I just dont care for it. There are other nicer 3d programs that I have had demo'd that I'd like but they are much more exspensive than either lightwave or max. The problem with light wave is the same problem after effects 3.1 had before it went to 4.0. Some idiotic engineer designed the interface. Things dont always work so intuitivly as they should. If you have to choose between lightwave and max tho look at your output preferences. For interactivity(ie games/vrml) max is much friendlier..there are plug-ins for tons of formats. Lightwave on the other hand has great output for video and film. The reason I choose Carrara was b/c of Carrara's integration with video products. It is comparable to lightwave in this regard, but is not quite so flexible. I feel tho that carrara will be able to compete with Lightwave once adobe (or whoever) can get a nice bones system hooked up. Of course by then I probably wont be able to afford it as Im sure that adobe will have Carrara's price equal to or greater than lightwaves by the end of the year :)

oh yeah...I only have access to lightwave 5.5 so I have no ideal whats up with 6.0, but I will say this, out of all the people I know who use it (not many) none use it to model in. They all use 3rd party modelers and then import to lightwave to do animations and render. I have heard tho that 6.0 finally handles UV maps so that may make it a lot more popular as that was always the biggest complaint that artists would cry about to me.

Some of the reasons why Lightwave choice is a no brainer -stability -industry proven -massive 3rd party support -greater workload -more accepted -better rendering -better effects -better implementation of features standard with package -more complete solution I see what you are saying, but Lightwave is not made for the faint hearted. I have both 3DSmax r2.5 and Lightwave5 and Carrara cannot yet stand against them. Lightwave is not only good for film, many game developers use lightwave for low polygon modeling. It is one of the major reasons why it is a big seller. Most people really only hear about it beacause of its implementation in film. Lightwave is a great, all-around 3D solution, and Carrara can be but it is a not currently and that is the brainer. Engineering Interface, yep, I prefer it that way and many others do too. To me that is simpler but that is only my opinion as I don't really care for the little hands or rotating balls etc... To me those are just redundant features that act as nothing more than eye candy. I learn the keystokes and move on. I could care less about those things because when it comes down to it, and interface can be as pleasing as you can get it, but if the software doesn't deliver what it says it can deliver then it's still an underclass. You cannot say that one software is better than the other based on its difficulty to use. Carrara has an easy interface, but does a shitty job a many things like IK! What makes the difference is Stability and Dynamics. Can the software deliver what I need and can it handle the workload!? YES Lightwave can, and at the present time Carrara cannot. Now that it is in the hands of Adobe, oh yes, I expect to see some good things come out of it or I would have discarded it earlier.

Can the software deliver what I need and can it handle the workload!? Thats what it all comes down to. When somebody come's in here and ask's should I get lightwave or carrara it comes down to the above question. Yes lightwave can do a lot that carrara cant, but carrara can do something lightwave cant. Carrara can make 3d accessible to newbies. And if your showing up to a forum and asking questions like that then lightwave probably isnt for you. Theres a reason one program is 2k+ and the other is 400. The simple fact is that when the video toaster came out, if I learned how to fully use lightwave then I would be a die hard lightwave fan now. The problem is I never took the time to take advantage of 3d until recently. Carrara is letting me create now. I sat down with lightwave and some vhs tutorials (which is way more help then I had with carrara) and I found the program to be totally cumbersome and counterproductive to the way I work. The last thing I want to do Is worry about animating null objects. Yes lightwave does some KICK @ss IK. I found using its bone system was very cool. It was nice the way it handled the camera's and lights. It was horrible when it came to applying properties to items like skins, reflection etc. And its modeling program was the biggest pile of poo I ever worked with. I mean in Carrara If I want to spell out my name I click on the text ICON and away I go...whats with lightwave making even text a pain in the butt? double sided polygons? Might be nice when I'm mr. 3d model man but for simple creations I dont want to mess around with that sort of thing. So what it comes down to is the above quote. And to me I just dont see lightwave meeting the above criteria to all people. If it is what you need you have looked on web sites and read reviews and you know that it's what you need. If your asking around here your PROBABLY (hey there's always exceptions) looking for something accessible now. Someone below posted that just b/c you know C++ doesnt make you a good programmer...it takes years to fully understand it. This is a great example: Carrara = Basic, lightwave = C. Yes technically lightwave is more powerful, but most people will do just fine with carrara and for many lightwave will just be a stumbling block for them. Man I have to quit posting right before bedtime..this is one crappy unspellchecked rant.... off to bed....

I agree with you 100 percent. The tools do not make you a good, it is how you use the tools. And I agree that Lightwave is not for everyone as well, Just as I prefer the "engineering interface" of Lightwave, and Autocad. But I agree with you 100%. I think Carrara is an exceptional tool for beginners and intermediates alike and it will be absolutely awesome once all of the bugs are worked out. Let's just hope that Adobes makes to Carrara what it has made Photoshop. Then!, holy crap! I don't think there would be much out there that can contend. But there is always the issue of price. I just hope Adobe supports the few of us who bought Carrara when it was still in the hands of Metacreations.

Get Cinema 4D ! It's much better than Carrara, Max or Lightwave http://www.maxon.de/usa/index.html