Carrara does not have : - live previews of your scenes Define live previews? - advanced openGL preview Got me on that, the OpenGL is not on par with Vue, but realistically not a big selling point - volumetric atmospheres Carrara 4 now has volumetric skies - negative lights Useful but not necessary, would be a nice feature - panoramic view (360 degrees) Carrara does have a spherical camera, though I'm not sure what you are getting at with panoramic view - DEM files support for terrains Supported via Ground Control - 3D sculpting of terrains (only 2D painting with 3D view) I do like this in Vue, but I prefer fractal generations - automatic mapping of HDRI envelopes to the sky and ground seamlessly