Does anyone have this yet, and does it import Poser .pz3 animation files? They have a very cool-looking 'non-photorealistic' render mode that is unlike anything I've seen in other packages.

It does not import .pz3 files. It does have a lot of cool new features though. I will be upgrading. Hopefully there will be a Poser plugin developed. That alone would make Carrara worth the price of admission. Joe @3-AXIS

It does not import .pz3 files. It does have a lot of cool new features though. I will be upgrading. Joe @3-AXIS

I use Carrara 3. Haven't had the time to really get into it and learn all the neat stuff but I have been using it to render my poser figures. All the recent stuff in my gallery (everything from Sphere Man v2 onwards) is Carrara rendered. What can I say, the educational discount combined with the fact that Carrara is OS X native and doesn't crash on me like Poser does (especially with high res textures) made it too good to resist. Like LawnDart said, you can't import pz3 files directly, but you can import the poser figs as OBJ files. Getting the transparency maps to work takes a little bit of doing at first until you get into the groove though. But yeah, I like it. Haven't played too much with the non photoreal render modes though.

the last I heard, eovia and CL were hoping to develop a plugin for poser import into carrara. This was posted on the yahoo group a while back...I havent heard anything more. Carrara3 is by far the best of the carrara series. This image is a carrara3 render and was modeled with the upcoming new version of Amapi7 (called Amapi Pro). :) BT

Now "THAT" is awsome! BT: What type of lighting is used on this? Was the atmosphere done in the render? Again, this is very well done. Thanks, Joe

Yeah I've been digging those screenshots you've been posting in the Carrara forum BT. Kick ass. re: the Carrara-Poser plugin...I did send an email to Eovia once asking about it. Someone there (Jim Lumley I think?) sent me a reply. I was told that there would be a plugin for Carrara 3 and Poser 5 (he didn't know if it would work w/ Poser 4) announced "shortly after the Macintosh release of Poser 5."

One of the major things that carrara3 lacks is the ability to easily add a figure and animate it. Now that it has bones, it IS possible...but its a bit cumbersome. If CL and Eovia can get it to work, it'd be really great to open your favorite poser critter in carrara and manipulate it, then render using the advanced rendering options that carrara has. Poser (tho it does render) is just very limited on what it does and it's camera's "steer like a cow". Carrara is leaps and bounds above that. oh..the lighting. There are low power lights inside each of the street lights with falloff assigned to each. There is a "distant" light in the sky to act as the sun. There is a "distant" foggy atmosphere assigned to the scene. There is no global illumination or any of the new lighting options added. Each and every model is mapped with UVmapper and all textures are picture textures. I'll be showing some more pictures from the game soon because eovia has untied our hands and will now let us say "Amapi Pro"..lol. The attached picture is a raw render from carrara 3 with the non-photo realistic render engine. (Now won't it be really cool when they get the c3/poser plugin made :)) BT

This gets a big ovation. "Clapping hands" BT: I don't know how much you can talk about it but are you liking the new nurbs modeling features in Amapi Pro? All the best, Joe @ 3-AXIS