Wondering if anyone has a sugegstion on where one can find out what's happening with Carrara. Obviously, MetaCreations lamed out BIG TIME in its responsibility to the customer, so now... How do we find out? Maybe this is the place...?

I have the same question. Apparently 'Metacreations', or what's left of it, has changed their name and moved their offices to the east coast. I wonder if there is any basis for a class action suit since they apparently knew they were going out of business when they sold us this relatively expensive application. Any hungry lawyers out there?

just go to egroups.com (sign up and do a serach on carrara) thats were all off any one who knows anything about carrara epsilon Class of 00

Thank's Epsilon. There's not much news, but then... there's not much news there, but then... there's just not much news.

What?! Class action suit?! I hope you are joking. For WHAT?! They made a piece of software, you bought it, the deal is done. They have no further obligation to you. Don't believe that all companies are like Zygote, giving away freebies because they feel like it. When was the last time your mechanic came to your house and fixed your car because you went to him four years ago for an oil change. Just because everybody's up in arms about Microsoft (even though NOBODY cares) doesn't mean the public should get something for nothing.

Hoborg... Well, I'm not a lawyer but... I believe that there is at least an implied responsibilty to support your product. For example, if you sell a printer that uses a special ink cartridge, you can't just stop making that cartridge when you move on to a new product... I think there's something in the law about 7 years, dada, dada. Again... I'm not a lawyer. In any event, there are consumer protection laws in this country, thank God. There are implied warranties and other legal instruments to protect us from the greed and selfishness of 'businessmen'. Metacreations sold a new product to the general public when they knew they were going out of business and would not be around to support that product... that's wrong. If it's not illegal, it ought to be. And I'm not joking. Ev...

I bought a digital camera a few years back, and then the company stopped making the replacement batteries for it. They just stopped. They aren't under any obligation to me to continue making the batteries JUST for me and the 10,000 other people who bought it. I'm pretty sure they can stop making whatever they want whenever they want to. I'm no lawyer, either, and I am a little upset about Carrara's future, but I don't think there is a basis for legal action here. I'm just going to roll with the punches like I did with my camera. Carrara does what it's supposed to do, and it will always behave the quirky way it does. But that's what you paid for. I agree that there should at least be patches. But I don't think that a Carrara 2.0 is something that they ought to produce. Hoborg

Hoborg... A good summing up! I agree. Ev...

I'm kinda unsure on the whole thing.MetaCreations pushed out Carrara in a hurry. I picked it up for $99 as the upgrade for Ray Dream Studio. The manual has certain items, like being able to work with photoshop filters that were supposed to be taken care of in the future. I am truly starting to think Meta is just a "shark" company and should be dealt with as such. Amazing how they shed their name to lose whomever in the wake of the uproar over all this. If I remember correctly they also made a statement to the press INCLUDING MacWorld that Carrara was sold to Adobe, along with Canoma. Naturally, Adobe emphatically denies everything. If that is'nt phony and misleading, what is?

Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/200008/20000828metastream.html

All... I rest my case. Any hungry lawyers out there? Ev...

You can't really drag in lawyers unless you have a source code escrow agreement in place between you and the original producers of the product. If you look at sites like http://www.componentsource.com (for VB developers; they sell ActiveX controls), you'll see the price for source code escrow services. In a nutshell, it means that if the company folds and your product relies on a product the company produced, then you can proceed with a phalanx of lawyers, blah, blah, blah. Alas, for those of us who had bought licenses for just about all the products MetaCreations produced, that's as far as it goes. They were just licenses. Sure, most companies are interested in keeping their customer base happy, but they aren't legally required to do so. If you read the license agreement that comes with just about every retail software package on the market, it boils down to: "Well, here's what we put out. If it works for you, great. If it doesn't, then it's your problem, not ours. Deal with it." I made the move over to trueSpace 4.3 last month. While Maya was my first choice, the practical limits of what was in my bank account made the decision for me. Sadly, it looks as if Carrara (and RayDream) are dead. The only glimmer of hope (other than coding a replacement myself) is the fact that Mark Zimmer and his cohorts do have a [miniscule] presence on the web: http://www.fractal.com. Let's hope they can break away from Corel (before it goes under) in time to survive financially.

I was one of the fools who bought Carrara. I was excited about it because Metacreations put out great solutions like Poser and Bryce. Those packages were pretty good so out of expectation I thought that I was getting a good product. But like most, I was wrong and there was a since of betrayal, after kicking myself for NOT looking at industry standard I decided to turn to the industry standard and bought Lightwave(6). It is less expected that a company like Newtek, Autodesk etc... are going anywhere as they have a very solid footing in the industry be it gaming and or movies and engineering. If you want the bang you have to put out the bucks. I mean you rarely hear Lightwave or 3DS max user complaining about patches and software unrealiablity.