I did a comparison between Carrara's raytrace renderer and Bryce. The Carrara image is on the left and the Bryce image is on the right. The Carrara image with all the bells and whistles set to "best quality" looks pretty bad, especially compared to the Bryce output. it doesn't look real at all. Anybody have any idea how to fix it? I used the same .obj model (four concentric spheres*), default glass texture, a simple monotone plane and sunlight in both programs. I used the four seasons plug-in in Carrara to create the sky. I clicked all the bells and whistles to try and load up Carrara as heavily as possible. I just feel that I must be overlooking something. I prefer Bryce's output, even if it took over five hours to render. There is no comparison in rendering time, Carrara only took a minute and a half, but if it can't produce a better quality image, its a piece of junk. I must admit, there are probably many situations where Carrara's renderer will be fine, maybe even great. This is just one area where the internal physics of Carrara appears to be weak. Interesting enough, Bryce chokes on overlapping transparencies. The same four spheres not overlapping took only thirty minutes to render in Bryce.

I dunno.....I think it's more about how you use the tools. :) Mark

most humble apologies, I just assumed that the default glass in Carrara would already have refraction set. I'm the dummy for not checking. Thanks!

We're all learning. Otherwise, it wouldn't be any use visiting. I've picked up some really cool tips at this forum. It's a good group. Mark

Nevertheless, rendering caustics is a feature missing in Carrara (unfortunately), but can be faked in Bryce, as you can see from the examples. That is something I already complained about. Gabi

Too true! I usually create a glass caustic gel on a spot and place it in the shadow area to fake it. Same for radiosity type of stuff. DCG glow extension is a great radiosity work-around though. Mark

I thought there was something fishy about that first image. :) Tell me, did you use the default shader in the texture room? Or did you take it from the presets in the library? Hoborg