I hear Carrara is great for rendering & really quick & easy to set up a scene for lighting etc. can any users confirm this for me. cheers guys

Why this doubt? Carrara is the best;-) TOXE

Toxe Is correct!

Yes, but how good is it at endering?

he he, spelling never was my strong point :O)

Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com

I love Carrara's rendering engine. Check out my site: http://www.vizualds.com All was rendered in Carrara. Brian

Lemme put it this way.... I used Bryce for several years and got pretty familiar with how to set up a realistic scene in it. I'm a semi-pro theater lighting designer by trade (which means I get paid to design, but not a whole bunch) and what really bugged me in Bryce was the total lack of radiosity. I got into using sky domes of forty or more lights, radiosity fakers scattered around the ground -- and all of that drove up the render times. Then Carrara. A scene with GI sets up in seconds. The lights finally looked something like they did in the real world. And the speed....the durn thing renders faster than Poser4! I've had to crank the settings up to red-line to generate the kind of render times I used to have in Bryce. And that's what really sold me. The GI, and the sky light. Lighting a realistic outdoor scene used to take hundreds of lights and a couple weeks of tweaking. Now it takes one, and seconds. And the interior scenes are to die for.

Yeah. Thats what I love about Carrara. I've used many other programs. And none have the speed and simplicity you get with Carrara. I'm working on a few short films, and I will tell you, that with settings cranked up, rendering out at 640x480 I get an average of 3 minutes per frame. And thats with 4-5 lights, over 40 objects, a load of textures, two particle generators, and of course lots of animation:) And if you are still debating it. You get Carrara Pro for free if you buy Carrara 3. I'd say its well worth it for what you get:) Brian

Thanks guys, I like the look of renders i've seen, I have been using Vue 4 & was contemplating Vue 5 to get the render quality matched with speed that i'm after...I really need a program that I can use for product design rendering (maily jewellery) interiors and exterior visualisation...I have access to Max but the rendering takes sooo long. Has anyone compared with Vue at all as the renderer isn't bad & looks like it's been improved somewhat for the new version? At the moment the lighting presets are swaying it for Carrara but you can't use them in the demo....what a pain! Brian

Carrara has a great renderer. It is fast (ridiculously fast even on my old pc) and easy to use. All of the great things people have said here are true and the render engine is capable of results that you only see in the big boy apps. On the downside I would say that it can be a bit odd when confronted with some of the more difficult tasks. I find area lighting to be quite difficult as artifacts are generated with very high settings and using objects as light sources can get slow. (Mabey it is the renderer I I have to learn to use it better) Overally I really like it and with some tweeks it will be perfect.

I'd say go with Carrara, the renders are better and it is way more stable than Vue, Don't geet me wrong,... I like Vue but it's more for scenery than anything else. carrara is far better renderer, yes Vue is going to have GI and other lighting effects but it's a first generation and that always ends up needing a few months (or even years) to get all the bugs out. I'd go with carrara over Vue if you have to choose one, though having them both is good :)

carraras renderer is better and really more stable than vue. i also love the speed and the quality of carraras render engine.every company says =we have the fastest renderer= but believe me only carraras renderer is really fast. the quality of rendered images can look like(with the right settings and textures)it was rendered in real expensive 3d packages.

I'm a P5 user also trying to decide between Carrara, Vue and Shade. I want effortless Poser import, the ability to create 3D models easily (and import stock models), and render out something that allows not only photorealism but toon style shading as well. The consensus seems to be that Carrara has it over Vue, but what about Shade? straker

go with carrara,it is the best choice!:)

I have all three. My experience is this:

For rendering Poser figures, Shade is 1st, Vue second, and Carrara 3rd. Probably because transPoser has a bug that Eovia hasn't been able to/won't fix. Saying that, most things import fine into Carrara, and you may not run into the bug. I believe it has something to do with size.

For modeling, I would have to say Carrara 1st, Shade 2nd, and Vue nowhere to be seen.

It's possible that Shade could overtake Carrara in the modeling dept as I learn Shade.

Also, to me Shade is easier to apply materials to parts than Carrara or Vue. Not saying it's hard in any of them though.

I would try the demo of each and see what you think. However, I don't think the demo of Carrara will alloow you to import Poser figures since you need the plugin transposer. Vue and Shade support Poser natively. Carrara 4 Pro will include the transposer plugin. My thoughts may very well change after I get my upgrades to Vue and Carrara. Can't wait to see!

Message edited on: 09/27/2004 10:12

Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com

Straker, of the 3 choices, I would say that Carrara would be the best choice. Vue is not designed to model, and Shade from what I've heard has some issues. If you get the pro version of Carrara (which you get free with purchase of CS3 now) you'll get Transposer (easy import of Poser models/animations) as well as Amapi Designer (for modeling) and you'll get CADstyle, Lightwave import, COB (truespace), BVH (motion data), and FBX for a variety of import options. And Carrara's Toon! renderer and the nonphotorealistic renderer fit the bill as far as toon shading. The reasons I wouldn't get Shade is that from quite a few people (including myself) I've heard (and seen) that its quite buggy, I couldn't get one process done in the demo without it crashing. Also, with Carrara you get a large community, and support structure to help you learn it. My site: http://www.vizualds.com with something like 75 tips/tutorials 3dxtract http://www.3dxtract.com with a monthly free e-zine with tutorials galore! Plus the yahoo list. Shade is very limited with help, so it would be difficult to learn. Oh...and of course http://www.carrarafilms.com which hosts a film list of short films in production by Carrara users:) Brian brian@vizualds.com http://www.vizualds.com

Jcleaver, This is just a rumor, but from what I've heard from Eovia, the reason they haven't released the bug fix, which I think I know what you are referring too, because I beta tested transposer, is that they will be releasing an update soon (hopefully) that fixes that and gives dynamic hair import. Though this is just a rumor. Brian

and carrara is stable!

I certainly hope the rumor is true! I would be overjoyed. I myself would love to use as few programs as necessary, and I hope Carrara Pro 4 will end up as my main program. If transPoser doesn't get fixed, then I will have to rethink my priorities.

Sorry to go off topic, but Jcleaver, can you email me the details of what is causing transposer not to work properly? And a file that is doing it? I can forward it to the developers, and might get some more action going, and see if they can release a fix? Brian brian@vizualds.com