anyone had time to try the c4pro demo yet? noticed its out and im dl it right now. anyway, if youve tried it whats your thoughts about it.

I am moving this to the Carrara Forum where I am sure you will get a better range of opinions about Carrara Pro.

np agiel but i was actually looking for opinions from people using both c and vue, but i guess we have some of those in the carrara forum aswell :) so speak up ppl, what do you feel about c4pro and how those it work together with vue5 (vue5pro would of course be a better partner but its not out yet so vue5 will have to do)

Vue5 renderer is nightmare for animator. Veitas777 knows it. Vue is great with plant and wind dynamics. Carara have their good part too. I choose Carrara over Vue for my project. So it varys depending on what project you're on. I only use Vue for plants dynamics and import the avi into Carrara and it worked so great for my project.

I use both regularly. The're both good. Vue still has the has the more mature sky/atmosphere tools in my opinion. Terrain handling is equal but with different methods to get the best results. It is easier to get good plants in Vue, but with a little effort, Carrara is very respectible. Carrara is closing the gap on skies though. On the Mac system Vue continues to be a little quirky - Carrara is solid. Texturing tools, especially with some of the cheap plug-ins available for Carrara, makes Carrara the clear winner here. Carrara does have much better modeling and animating is much easier in Carrara. The IK chains are very useful in Carrara too. However, if most of your renders are pure landscapes, Vue is the best choice. That said, I'm really glad to have both. Mark

Yeah, what he said. :-) Vue is a bit quirky under Mac, I am glad I am not the only one to think so. It only took me about 3 minutes playing with a Procedural Terrain to crash the app... As Mark said, they are two different apps really for different audiences, but they can compliment each other. So far from what I have seen of the HDRI and Global Illumination of each, Carrara's results seem to be more impressive, but they both (Vue5 and C3/4) produce spectacular results for the price. I can't speak for C4, as I still have C3, but it looks quite a bit better and a worthy upgrade. And that is saying a lot as C3 is a great piece of software! Regards, Paul

Well, I personaly am rather disapointed with Carrara 4. I find it tends to bog down quite rapidly on my system. As soon as your scene becomes a little complex, it starts bogging down and eventually becomes unuseable. I'm used to creating scenes in Vue with millions of polygons easily - it seems to be impossible to do anything elaborate with Carrara. And frankly, making blurry reflections a "Pro-only" feature is outrageous. PAGZone, did you try the update to Vue 5.02? It says something about procedural terrains in the list of fixes. Can't really say if Vue is stable on Mac but it's rock solid on PC - and I've rendered scenes with over 50 million polygons!

Attached Link: http://www.eovia.com/support/bug_report.asp

Petshoo-sorry to hear you are bogging down. I've had some very complex scenes myself in Carrara (the candleman scene on my website for instance, and terrains covered with trees) and have not had issues. What realtime renderer are you using? Software or OpenGL? Perhaps you should report this to Eovia, http://www.eovia.com/support/bug_report.asp It sounds like you might possibly have a memory leak going on maybe? If you save the file and reopen it does performance increase? As to your comment about Pro, the price difference between the two is small so I don't find it an issue I just got Pro and I'm happy with it. I'd seriously recommend contacting Eovia since Carrara shouldn't be bogging down on you. They can't find every bug, but they try too. Brian brian@vizualds.com

I've used Vue and Carrara. And as Mike said it really depends upon what your uses for it are. If you want purely a landscape tool then go Vue. If you want an all around package then I'd say Carrara is the way to go. Having Beta tested it and played around with all the new features a lot I've found them quite capable. The terrains have a lot of capability and since they are fractal based they retain there detail pretty much no matter the size, there are quite a few nice modifications in the vertex modeler, morph targets are wonderful, sound import is nice but at the moment more for play and some minor sound syncing since you can't scrub. Skies...wow what can I say, with some slight tweaking you can get some very realistic skies. I'd suggest really playing with the demo if you have questions, ask here, or if you are having problems contact Eovia tech support they are awesome, and just pick which program is best for you. Really I don't see the two products at all on the same level, its like comparing photoshop to maya, they are designed for two different tasks, you can kind of make an image that looks like it was modeled etc in photoshop but really its just a 2d program, just like Vue is for landscapes, and thats its focus. Brian

Orange is Apple!!

well im already a vue user myself and im going to pick up vue5 pro once its out(was a part of the vue5 beta team and even tho i love vue5 esprit im waiting for vue5pro before i upgrade vue4), so my interest is more how the experienced carrara users use it together with vue. @ brian i to view carrara and vue as different applications that should be used together and not pitched against each other, and thats why im asking for feedback here from users of both vue and carrara and what they feel about using both apps together. been checking out the c3 demo earlier and im now playing around with c4pro, havent decided yet if carrara4 pro/basic is the right companion to vue5pro but ill make sure to give the demo a good long turn and i do like what ive seen so far. anyway, i appreaciate the feedback/thoughts ppl so keep on posting.

I really think you ll like to have Vue/Poser/Carrara/Amapi/ZBrush they all are nice together. Amapi come with Carrara for free. It is real modeler for pros with big boys. Zbrush is bigger than big boys, it is key 3d software for professional movies, it has everything you need to model any kind of character. I have a high end software but I am not happy with it. I like all thoese 5 because it is fun and easy to use.

petshoo, It stinks that C bogs down on your system. I haven't had any problems with speed, but I don't work with any really intense scenes. Thanks for the tip on the 5.02 update. It does say it fixes the crashing bug with the Procedural Terrains and Textures. It is a beta version, so I may wait till the General Release to update. GWeb, ZBrush looks pretty cool, kind of looks like a hybrid paint/3D app. I will have to look at it some more... Paul

Paul, Yes it is hybrid paint/3D app. But paint tools is what you need to model a character with finer detail. It has hybrid displacement map and 3D that allows you to draw very detail like wrinkles hair pores. You can decrease polygons and export the displacement to other 3D apps that will take it. Julien made a plug in that can take this map. ZSphere is god's gift in ZBrush. You can build a character very fast than any other modeling app that I know!! It has scaler for number of polygons on character and allows you to move any of it without messing with smaller detail. It is just all awesome. I only know one tool that it is missing but I always get around to it. But ZBrush have alot to offer than any other apps I know and most complete.

It sounds cool. I'll have to try the demo. My budget, right now, won't allow me to buy it, but I like the premise... Thanks for the info. Paul

My advice is to wait on getting Carrara Pro. It is way overpriced for todays marketplace. You may want to wait until either the price drops in half or SP1 or SP2 is released. There really isn't any incentive/value in getting c4pro now; you will pay the regular full overinflated price. There isn't any free T-shirt, book, or other included anything. Unless you like being a beta tester of course. Wait. Now is not the time to buy!

I say get CPro 4, VPro 5, Poser 5, and ZBrush 2. That should be enough to get anyone modeling. Hopefully, Amapi Pro 7 will be fixed without having to buy Amapi 8.

I think Carrara Pro is very competively priced. And if you get Carrara 3 now you get the upgrade for free. Carrara 3 is only $399. So for $400 you get a high end modeler(Amapi), an all around 3d package (Carrara), and a nice chunk of the Eovia plugins. And there are tons of resources and places to get help and aid. Its great. If you have the budget I'd go for it.

Shonner, You mentioned Amapi 7 being "fixed" is it still buggy and unstable? It was when I last used it on the Mac. I had to give it up because of constant crashes. It's a shame really because it really has a ton of modeling options and I would love to learn it. Regards, Paul

Amapi's main problem in my experience, the only reasons its crashed on me are video card related.

I have Amapi 3d 6. How does it compare to Amapi 7?

From a Mac perspective, I only used A6 when I absolutely had to; crashes galore, funky NURBS/smoothing performance. A6 is a good modeler but has a ton if "issues". A7P is a real pleasure though. Very solid performance and the new NURBS tools are outstanding. Plus it "plugs-into" Carrara very well - If you change your Amapi model within Amapi, then back in Carrara you can simply use a menu option to update it.

Message edited on: 11/06/2004 14:04

I'm going to experience a little further to try and see what it is exactly that bogs down before I report. Even after rebooting, I still get the problem. How many polygons to you have in your typical scenes? I'm used to Vue where I can have really complex scenes with millions of polyogns and still the program responds swiftly. I've been told that it's because of the way Vue is programmed to do a lot of stuff in the background, as you work. Multi-threding or somthing like that.

Petshoo, I have done quite large scenes in Carrara with no problem , I organize things in layers(groups)and make the layers invisible when not needed. I have done scenes with over 300 object and over 3 million polygons without a problem. I plan on doing more complex scenes too in the future. Mike

Amapi 7 is more than great for polygon modeling. I use the PC version. The NURBS portion is something that needs more work still to get it past the alpha stage. In CP4, I notice that if you change an object imported from AP7 that the "Update Amapi Scene" option is still highlighted even though you've lost the link to the original Amapi file. Clicking on it causes more confusion if you haven't realized an object was changed.

Message edited on: 11/06/2004 21:26

yea, boyo, this new CS4pro release looks very cool... albeit a tad expensive perhaps... I mean I currently have CS2, and even on the upgrade price... ouch... I mean the regular version would be the way to go for me except the part about motion blur, which I kinda feel should be in the regular version... I mean I really don't require networking etc, but I can see using the motion blur... just my 2 cents worth here :)

It is marketing package. Eovia set their rules. There are some things I don't need but I am more than happy to pay for upgrade to help them develop better Carrara in future. They can't just have bread and milk everyday.

ah, ok, that sounds somewhat reasonable... however considering the position Carrara is alongside so many other high end packages, I have to wonder whether or not offering Carrara at say half the price, and thus perhaps gaining twice, or even three times the userbase, would not amount to same proceeds or better... just a thought... Personaly I would love to see Carrara go all the way to the top of the heap, and would gladly pay a reasonable price for such to occur, but I could really care less whether I get Amapi or not, as I never use it... you know what I mean?

That is same with any other 3D apps. Any customers can make decision to purchase it or not. I considered Carrara a very good investment for my business so I bought Carrara 3 and I will upgrade it to C4pro. I am evaluating the demo to see if there is anything I need from it. Terrain editor with displacement and good shader is a must for my project. I can not upgrade my vue4pro to vue5pro because of renderer engine is awful slow. So I only get animated trees from Vue into Carrara and it worked great. Everything else in Vue is useless. Carrara is very productive and faster than high end apps and is considered superior software for my project.

I was hoping CPro4 would have the "error 44" messages from C2 and C3 fixed in Windows by now after all these years. The "an unknown error occured" message still shows up when rendering, too. I'm a computer programmer and I don't like seeing bugs in my own software. What I don't like even more is software I've paid for that has old bugs in it still. Eovia just needs to start firing its programmers and tech support and start over. I'm serious. It needs to be done if Carrara is to succeed ever. There are still Ray Dream users that have not made the switch over to Carrara. I now see their reason.

I still dont see their reason. Carrara is very useful for my project and I never got any error. I hope I got one to understand where you were coming from. It may be your RAM with no ECC. I always make sure that I get mobo with ECC support and RAM with ECC because you never know that the electric wavelength may enlarge inside computer processing. ECC keeps all electric stable.