I've been interested in starting in 3D for some time and have some experience with freeware 3d programs. would anyone recommend carrara for a relative beginner with a particular interest in animation? Thanks

Carrara is not a perfect application. However, if you find one, let me know! ;) I use it everyday professionally for still and animation work and find it quite reliable and stable. It's feature set is robust and it's render speed and quality is very good. For it's price, it's tough to beat. And, like any good program with many features, you have to take time to learn it thoroughly to be able to fully utilize it's many capabilities. I do use other modelers such as Poser, Bryce, Amapi and Vue (comes tomorrow) but largely use Carrara for most of my professional needs.You can do almost anything with it, especially utilizing the many and inexpensive plug-ins availiable for it. That said, if you are going to move to high-end animation a la Hollywood style, you will eventually need a Maya, Lightwave or something like that. They simply do some things that you cannot do with Carrara. However, Carrara is an excellent starting point for learning how craft animations easily and end up with some pretty impressive results. Additionally, many of the things that the high-end packages did exclusivly a couple of years ago are now becoming availiable in less expensive products like Carrara. If I ever finally get my website updated (it's been like 8 months beyond where I thought I'd have time to overhaul it) there will be quite a few animation samples made with Carrara for clients in addition to the illustration work I do. www.markbremmer.com Regards, Mark

Have to agree with Mark. Carrara 2 is a great place to start and will take you a lot further into 3D work than you might expect.

Yep, pretty much the same feeling here. -Kix

If I may add my input. Being a former Carrara user (well I still use it for some stuff, mostly stills) I would recommend a better combination.. If you are interested in animation I would recommend you to get Carrara Basic which is $99.00 and you get all of the features of Carrara except the Vertex Modeler; which is really bad in in my opinion (you can use the free Wings3d instead), and the GI render (correct me if I'm wrong...) AND the 3D Toolkit (The cheap version of Electric Image Universe) which is $200 ( I bought it and I'm very happy with it) The Toolkit comes with a lot of tutorials that are realted to Universe but you can take the experience to other 3d packages. The Animator in the Toolkit is MUCH more professional than the one in Carrara. It has Motion blur (the one in Carrara is pretty bad), MUCH better antialiasing, light cones that work, the fastest renderer around (It is NOT a raytracer, but from what I've been experimenting you really never use a raytracer in production, you use reflection maps) and a whole lot of renderering options (Illumination sets, control of higlights per light ,etc, etc) Maybe a whole lot more than you will use but if you are planning on making it a career you will be thankful for them later... The Modeler (a separare aplication) is much more complicated than Carrara's (it is not polygon based, its curved based) so you have to think different there, but it IS a whole lot more POWERFUL. Boolean operations, that do work, bevels... for that alone its worth it. You can combine the two for 300 and get a killer 3d studio. I don't know if you also get the free Amapi 5 with Carrara Basics but if you do, you get another great (if somewhat weird polygon modeler). So if you want to make fast and professional animations you can use the renderer in the Toolkit and if you need to raytrace something you can use the one in Carrara. If you decide you like one better you can then upgrade to the full Carrara or to the full Universe, I think its a Win Win situation. Well that's my opinion :), take it from someone that has used both (and still do) and which is happy with both. A one more thing, so I have my conscience clean : ) The UV mapping implementation in the Toolkit its pretty bad, while the one in the Carrara is pretty good (provided you use a freeware UV mapping application like Ultimate Unwrap or UV mapper, which I think its included in the Carrara disk). Also the Toolkit won't accpect 3d party plug-ins, you need the full Universe for that, contrary to Carrara Basics which do takes plug-ins (and they are cheaper too) Good luck, sorry if it was too long : ) fjv

If animation is your thing then you ought to check out lightwave. The learning curve is steep (not to mention the price) but lightwave is amazingly powerful. You could spend days just inside what they call the Graph Editor. Personally I spend most of my time in Carrara and C4D (I find that both products have very accessible interfaces and can produce great looking output). There's so much to learn when it comes to 3D that you could probably spend a lot of time with Carrara before even needing to possibly upgrade to something more powerful. Carrara's vertex modeler is missing some features (like beveling, knife tool) but is I think a nice friendly introduction to polygon modeling. Carrara makes things like caustics and global illumination seem like child's play (plus the bones are easy to work with although I don't think they are as fully-featured as what you'd find in something like lightwave). Also, the user community for Carrara is usually very helpful (if you ask a dumb question on a lightwave list you're likely to get your head ripped off). I've played with a bit with electric image and thought that it might be a bit advanced/complicated for someone relatively new to 3D (but http://www.dvgarage.com/ does good work).

I'd suggest demoing the programs you are thinking about. I foundf dvgarage a pain to work in. Carrara 3 seems to be around the corner with major improvements likely. So keep a look out and test and such.

Also check out the plug-in sites at www.digitalcarversguild.com and www.losthorizonsoftware.com and http://www.zenstar.com/ to see what affordable add-on goodies are available for Carrara (plus vectorstyle which eovia sells direct). Hey MarkBremmer, get that new site done already! I'm looking forward to seeing it.

I ave to agree with the comments. I am a beginner at 3D and I have found Carrara some what easy to get into and do simple things. There are deffenitley better modelers out there. But rendering and animation is really easy in carrara. Strata has a good modeller, and I think they used to have a free version. Carrara Basics would be a good starting place too. You don't get Amapi 5 but you can get that free from 3D mag on one of their cover disks. I have been playing with Cinema 4D, but I find that Carrara might still be a bit easier to use... I need to finish the tutorials though. But C4D has a better modeller for sure. But if you want radiosity and Caustics you have to purchase the advanced render engine for C4d. That puts it out of the range of my hobby budget. I think the combo of C4d Base and carrara for rendering may be good too. I wish Maxon would release an older free version that seems to be the norm these days! Regards, Paul

Carrara and Amapi 7 are a great combo for me here. I do nearly all my rendering in Carrara, its the best renderer I have for the price (I had an old copy of Ray Dream Designer lying about... so I took the chance and snapped up Carrara, and glad I did.) With a few inexpensive addons, I can do effects that you can only do in high-end (and much higher priced) renderers. There are tons of better modelers out there than Carrara, give the demos a run and see what you prefer.

I'm not sure recommending Lightwave for an introduction to animation is a good idea. In exploring the web I have often read posts by Lightwave users in which they state that animation in Lightwave is very difficult. These users almost always state that they use Animation:Master for animation. $199 @ http://www.hash.com/tele/order.html The primary reasons for recommending Carrara are interface similarity to Poser, and a renderer that, while not as good as that of Lightwave, will give Maya's renderer, even for the most current version, which is good enough that many Maya users who used to render in Lightwave, now settle for rendering native in Maya, a run for the money. My recommendation for low end is: Start with Animation:Master and Poser 4, then add Carrara 2.0 and the pack that adds particle systems, such as fur. For a bit higher end: Lightwave 5.6 plus upgrade to Lightwave 7.5 (with free upgrade to Lightwave 8) $499 @ http://www.sharbor.com/products/NTKN0300065.html with Animation:Master plus Poser 4 plus Pro Pack. Poser 4 and Pro Pack are $89.99 each @ http://www.outpost.com/

Lightwave has a steep learning curve (especially for a newbie) but it does have very powerful animation features and with the project messiah plug-in can do things like Jimmy Neutron (I don't think someone would even attempt such a thing in Carrara). Animation Master is supposed to have the best character animation tools in the biz (killer bean is amazing) but I've never read a review where they didn't talk about the program constantly crashing (not that Carrara is perfect either but Lightwave by comparison seems quite stable). And then of course there's Maya which seems to have most of the buzz these days but I get the sense that much of the appeal of Maya lies in the fact that it can be Mel-scripted and basically turned into something very customized. Don't know much about SoftImage. Carrara's bones seem like a nice way to get started with characer animation but I don't think they're on par (at least yet) with the type of features you get in some of the other programs. The physics module is handy but it seems like perhaps the new version isn't quite as good as the old version. I guess it all depends on what you're hoping to accomplish. If nothing else, Carrara seems like a nice set of training wheels for learning about advanced features like boning, caustics, global illumination, polygon/vertex modeling, spline modeling, etc. If you've never done anything in 3D before, jumping right into Lightwave might be a bit overwhelming (I can attest to that since I tried to learn 3D using Inspire and didn't get very far until I fired up Carrara).

Just an FYI the link to the poser4 and pro pack on outpost, the pro pac is not currently in stock, but it is a great price. The link to the lightwave for $499 is Windows only, no Mac. I didn't look on their for a Mac version, but there may be one... I consider myself a beginner with not a lot of experience in 3D, I tried out Lightwave and was completely lost. It is not an application for a beginner. Maya is extremely confusing too. I would say for a beginner, you can't go wrong with Carrara or even Strata. Animation Master has some really nice features and seems really easy to learn, but it is very unstable. I have seen several demos of it at various trade shows, and every demo had at least one crash where the demonstrator lost all data. Steer clear until they release a stable version. Same goes for all the reviews I have read on it they all commented on the lack of stability. There is a really good article in one of the later 3D Mags that compares all the low priced alternatives to the expensive apps. They compare 3D Tool kit, (universe), Strata, Animation master, Carrara, and a couple others. Carrara didn't do that well and overall they gave 3D tool Kit (universe) the best scores. Regards, Paul

Is 3D Toolkit really a good choice for newbies? Even with the dvgarage tutorials it seems like Electric Image is a more advanced app along the lines of Lightwave, Maya, SoftImage and Max. Newbies maybe should be thinking Carrara, Strata, TrueSpace, Animation Master, Cool 3D Studio, Swift 3D or even Xara3D, etc. C4D seems to fall somewhere in the middle. Seems like a two-tiered world where maybe you want to cut your teeth on something less complicated before you dive into one of the big boys. Supposedly Maya has been revamped to make it more newbie-friendly (and I think the forthcoming lwave 8 may have some of this as well) but I tried the Maya demo and couldn't make any sense out of it. And, if you aren't doing character animation (and especially if you're just doing stills) then maybe the big boys are gross overkill.

Yes. The big boys are overkill for most people that say they are hobbyists. Maya was very confusing to me, whereas I get Carrara. I first started with ray dream and Carrara and Bryce and Poser all have similar interfaces thanks to MetaCreations. It took me a while to figure out how to move the camera in C4D and Maya, not as easy as the big ol track ball on carrara... It does seem that learning 3D first with Carrara or Ray Dream can be a good first step, although for a complete newbster some things in these apps are confusing. All in all I will continue to upgrade Carrara with every new version, as they always add new things that make it one step closer to the results of the Big Boys without the headaches and price. I checked out Cinema 4D (C4D) as it has been suggested that this can be as easy to use as Carrara (C2). I don't think it is, but that is me. It was not as intuitive as C2 or as easy to use. You have to think a bit different too, when using C4D over C2. Not to mention that for a beginner hobyist like me, $595 for C4D base is a bit steap. If you want caustics, raydiosity and rendering results that out does C2 then you need to spend another $500 for the advanced renderer. C2 is a much better value to me. Regards, Paul

Between lightwave, c4d and Carrara I've found that caustics and global illumination are easier to work with (and get good results with) in Carrara. Personally I think the best thing about Carrara is that it makes relatively advanced features accessible/affordable for the unwashed masses. Carrara is an interesting app in that in some ways it's ahead of the competition and in other ways it's still lagging behind. Another way to think about the apps is whether you're likely to be successful trying to use them on your own or as part of a small studio vs. working at ILM or Digital Domain where you'd have lots of help if you get stuck and probably a lot of workflow issues would already have been worked out for you (and maybe you'd even be working in a totally customized mel-driven interface instead of having to learn Maya at all). Another thing that's happening is workflows that combine multiple 3D apps (such as Maya-Lightwave or vice-versa). Personally I like to model in c4d (because it has tools that the carrara vm is missing) and then finish up in Carrara. So maybe it's becoming more mix&match than trying to get one tool that does everything. I think there are some other 3d apps like blender and merlin and wings3d but I don't have experience with them.

Hartcons point about workflow is probably the biggest thing for the
big boys... groups of people working on the same files in a
distributed network environment. With the smaller apps, you
couldn't integrate a dozen people on one file, (never mind NEEDING
them!:> ) but with the Maya's, Lightwave's and 3dMax's of the
world, they are built for having a bunch of people work on a
project, as well as render farms, and other Big Boy, (Big toy)
features. Though I would LOVE if Eovia added a render-farm-like
feature back into Carrara. Ray Dream had it years ago, and it got
killed in the later versions. :

Another thing I've noticed about the big boy apps is that they typically have tools geared toward dealing with large scenes with lots of objects (and/or with very complex objects). Lightwave has both a scene editor and spreadsheet tool for this purpose. Its modeler supports layers so you can distribute a complex object across multiple layers. Carrara does have an "Edit/Master Light" feature that can help with managing many lights.