This is the front of a flyer we received at the newspaper I work at this week. Newtek is aggressively pursuing the newspaper-artist market. There are hundreds of large newspapers in the US alone and each paper has many newsgraphics artists that are interested in getting into 3D but have little knowledge of the programs. These artists will eventually go with whatever application becomes the standard. They will go with the standard because their respective newspapers will buy the programs for them and pay for the training. Think about this. Hundreds of newspapers, 2-10 artists per paper. How many 3D applications will be sold?

(the above is a close up from the front) The three biggest papers in Texas now all have 3d artists. Here's the current breakdown: Houston Chronicle: 2 Lightwave artists Dallas Morning News: 1 Lightwave artist San Antonio Express-News: 2 Lightwave artists, 4 Carrara artists

(the above is the back of the flyer) Once an industry standard has been established, the wire services such as Associated Press and Knight Ridder will probably start offering the subcribing papers 3D models of buildings and scenes from breaking news events and these will probably be in the native format of the industry standard app.

Who decides what becomes the industry standard? The Society of News Design (SND) has a huge influence (they co-sponsored the event you see in the flyer). The Associated Press has an even bigger influence and recently sent all their subscribers a newsletter outlining a test they performed on what 3D app they felt was the best. Cinema 4D was their pick, Carrara wasn't even tested.

Message edited on: 01/27/2005 09:40

The San Antonio Express-News bought me a copy of Lightwave 2 years ago and I learned it well enough to produce some work for the paper but went back to Carrara because of Carrara's strengths and Lightwave's weaknesses. Lightwave costs more but cost doesn't factor in when your employer buys your software. Lightwave was designed from the ground up to do one thing, 3D animation for broadcast and film. It never was intended to be used in print. I have watched my co-workers take more than an hour to create images in Lightwave that I created in under 20 minutes in Carrara. Many times in Lightwave you have to take 3 steps to do something when Carrara would only take one. The reason for this is mainly because of all the heavy-duty animation tools LW is crammed with. Don't get me wrong, I think Lightwave is a wonderful program and many print artists have created some fine illustrations using it. In spite of the interface. I'm just sending this message out hoping it will alert Eovia's marketers of this potentially huge market. Go get 'em.

Urgh, that's scary. I hope Eovia pick up on it and respond in some way.

It is really a blame that carrara wasn't even choose for the comparison. It is still a problem with the "image" of carrara. We can talk about it here, but we will change nothing. So what can we do? Well, let us make good renders, give our ideas time, to get the best out of it render with high quality (GI, HDRI, Sky) and higher resolution, to show carraras power Johannes

Really Eovia for the past few years of there existence has been shy in marketing. This has been changing. I see there ads at CGtalk, CGchannel, CGfocus, 3dtotal, etc. And they are positioning themselves in a lot of markets now. I perceive the image of Carrara changing slowly over the next year or two. CS4 was a big leap for them, broad ranging improvements. And if CS5 continues the trend of adding powerful new features and streamlining existing ones, then time will tell. I have made a slight move to Blender myself, and plan on using the two together. Carrara currently lacks a good modeling and uvmapping combo (don't mention amapi, the workflow is annoying). I'm hoping CS5 shows some improvement with modeling internally, and more improvements in basic features, bug fixes, and additional missing features. Brian

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

"Have you seen the Lightwave gallery at NewTek? It is awesome and I have yet to find a 3d gallery that even begins to compare with the works posted there. See the link above."

Yes, but that also has A LOT to do with the fact that 90% of the images you see there are from professional artists and FX companies as opposed to 90% of Carrara's user base which is hobbiests. It has more to do with the artist that the software. Give any of those LightWave users a copy of Carrara 4 and you'll likely see them turn out works that rival what you see in the LightWave gallery. (especially given C4's rendering engine) Giving the majority of Carrara users a copy of LightWave would not yield the same results.

That asside, have you looked at the gallery at Strata cafe? While not all of it compares to what you see in the LW gallery there's a good deal that does. Especially check out Chris Tyler's stuff.

lightwave is very easy to learn,i just needed 4 days for it but the truth ist that im still using carrara more than lightwave,carrara is really fast,i mean global illumination ist faster then in lightwave and motion blur is also much better and plugins for carrara are much cheaper. i dont understand why so many people think that carrara is something like a kiddie tool or dont even testing it to see what it can do. i think carrara is coming fast and also rocks,i cant wait for version 5. PS:i like the strata stuff.

Attached Link: http://www.newtek.com/products/lightwave/lw-gallery/index.php?cat=2

I like Carrara best for print. I also find Carrara much more affordable and easier to learn than Lightwave.

Learning all that Lightwave has to it in four days is truely amazing in my opinion. It is taking me a bit longer.

I think the Newtek Lightwave gallery is probably the best on the web even though most of it is possibly from professional studios but I'm not positive on that. I like that Strata stuff a great deal, very cool. It is tempting too because I spend so much time in Adobe's Creative Suite. That Strata integration is a big, big bonus.

Carrara is no toy at all and is more versatile than Lightwave in VERY MANY ways. I also love the price point of third party plugins and add ons. Lightwave plugins would make me go broke if I bought all that I wanted. Anyone who thinks Carrara is just for kiddies must not know anything about Carrara.

Carrara is great in so many ways (it's much faster than Lightwave on my machine). I love it. One thing --- I can't wait for the day that Carrara has the modeling power of Lightwave. I think Carrara has a ways to go in that respect (I guess Amapi is Eovia's answer to that). Other than that Carrara fits perfectly into my workflow.

mmmmm that Strata was tasty. I live in Utah and it is a disaster down in St. George (due to flooding) where Strata is. I wish those people the best.

Message edited on: 01/28/2005 18:27

hi Steama,your right about carrara,i think the same. i dont sleep much so i have time to learn.:)

Man, I must be Rip Van Winkle. Gotta stop sleeping so much. LOL ;)

Diagoro wrote: i dont understand why so many people think that carrara is something like a kiddie tool Well, I think, one reason for that is the "working box". 2.54 inch, thats a kiddy size. So the first you are confrontated, if you test carrara, that you are not able to build a simple house in worldscale.(try to use the camera tools in real wolrd scale and know, what I mean) But I think, wiht the knew tools in the assemble room, the working box as it is, is n relict of the past and will die. Why is carrara good most for print? The vector plugin makes it a excellent tool for web and the fast renderer for movie. So it is a real allround tool. Johannes

Carrara is excellent for print because of its many render options and blazing fast render speed. I can get great hi-res results very fast. With very little post-Photoshop work it is amazing what Carrara can do. --"working box". 2.54 inch, thats a kiddy size-- Johannes, you lost me? My working box is much, much larger. What are you talking about (the storyboard room)? I'm curious. Do you have a dinky monitor or something? Good Luck, Steama

Do not know, what you are talking about. The standard size of the working box is 2.54 inch or 0,76 m. Just open a standard scene. You can resize the working box, for architecture I choose 20 m, but the camera moving tools are build for the standard size and this define the standard of the software. Johannes Even a terrain with 30*30 km is resized to 2,54 * 2,54 meter (with standard settings).

There's a reason why major television, motion picture and newpaper companies use Lightwave. And it isn't because Carrara is better. Time to get out of dreamland and smell the Starbucks. And guess which company doesn't even stand behind itself? You got it! Eovia

Attached Link: http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/292/1/378/

"Lightwave was designed from the ground up to do one thing, 3D animation for broadcast and film. It never was intended to be used in print." I'm sure that the animators at Disney said the same thing when they got fired. 3d has taken over several areas and continues its momentum. Graphic Illustrators are becoming the next target. 3d comics are increasing in number. I myself am trying my hand at this and I have noticed geep has started putting out his own comics as well. I read an article on the Curious Labs website a few years ago. Perhaps you might want to read it and see where 3d and print media cross.