Hello new here great website. And sorry if anyone's asked this already, I did try answering my own question but the search function is very limited. I can't afford Carrara PRO but I can carrara standard. From what I understand Carrara pro adds a bunch of plugins and extra software. Buying all that stuff later would be alot easier for me. Can I buy carrara standard and give it all the features carrara pro has with plugins? Thanks for any help.

I think buying the other components individually would be a pricey way to go (Amapi, Transposer, CADStyle and whatever else). Would the upgrade from C4 to C4 Pro at a later date be an option? I think it's around 300 bucks. You might want to call Eovia and tell them your dilemma. I did that with an unrelated app years ago when I was poor and much to my surprise the publisher worked with me so I didn't have to pay a dreadful premium to eventually get the higher end version.

Carrara Pro seems to come with alot of stuff I don't need I'm just looking for a program that can help me create models like in the game "Kingdom Hearts" I included some pics below to give you an Idea. I do have the skills for creating some really good looking 2d drawings but i don't know what program to use though. I'm not interested in the CPU melting, polygon heavy models like Poser 5, just something goodlooking and fun like the pics below. Does anyone know if Carrara standard is enough?

Pic 2

Pic 3

Have fun! As someone has probably pointed out, character modelling is a tough task. If you draw well, tho, you've got in my opinion a leg up already. One other bit of unasked-fot advice -- don't mess with the mouse. Drawing, modelling, even posting pictures of Disney characters will bring the wrath of Disney down on your head. And they got a lot of wrath, for folks that talk that funny.

You 'can' make figures like that in Carrara or probably any modeling app, but as nomuse pointed out it's a lotta work. You might also want to take a look at Animation Master. Character animation is it's strong point, although it would almost lock you out of the poly universe and there are no good resouces of canned AM content if that matters to you. For 250 bucks AM gives you the whole shooting match with no need for plugs. Even die hard Maya users will tell you AM has the best character animation toolset available. On the other hand Carrara plugs are pretty inexpensive so you could buy them as you can afford them, plus you have lots of free poly resources out there on the web. Even though they don't 'communicate' with each other Carrara and AM are my two favorite 3d toys as you can probably tell. My background is engineering and geology, so I can draw an orthogonal view of a rock, but beyond that things get dicey. If you have traditional drawing skills I'm sure you'll end up being able to produce nice work in whatever app(s) you choose.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but most game models are vertex/mesh based. Carrara Basics Or non pro versions don't come with the vertex modeller. Or you might check before giving out money.

I think C4 standard still has the vertex modeler. It is basics that is the real limited one. Regards, Paul

download the demo and see if you can get it to do what you want :)

Both versions of Carrara 4 have vertex, spline and metaball modelers. The spline modeler rocks. A lot of people love the vertex modeler too, although it's pretty basic. Don't forget you can always add another modeler to the mix later if you bump your head on limitations in Carrara 4 standard. This is all very subjective territory but you get quite a bit of bang for your buck with Carrara. Three modeling options is nice for an inexpensive package.

WOW! LOL Awsome help :))You guys are making my switch from 2D to 3D real easy! thankyou for the helpful advice. I never intended to model any disney characters the pics are just an example of what I want to model. It seems like these models are shaded by their textures a neat looking technique. I got alot to cachup on had no idea game models where vertex/mesh based, I wonder does that make them more flexible? I'll checkout AM thankyou. I figure modeling would come easy since drawing is basicaly imagening 3 dimesional models in your head. Here's a pic of gambit below I drew in paintshop I want to apply these skills to 3D modeling, thanks again.

"had no idea game models where vertex/mesh based" I didn't realize you were quite that new to 3d. I don't want to mislead you. If you do anything where, as an artist, you might need to share files with other people (something I don't have to worry about as a hobbyist) then you'd be much safer with Carrara. Carrara handles the major poly file formats which is what most of the world works with. AM does not. AM rocks, but you're pretty much stuck in the AM universe when you work with it.

I did some checking up on AM and was impressed with what the program offers I was like WOE! just about everything I can imagine this program can do. But I always reasearch a product thoroughly before I spend my hard earned cash and I do mean bust your butt hard earned cash LOL. I wasn't Impressed with Hash's website you'd think they would put up a great looking website to support sell their product right? Like evoia. Also did some reading of other peoples experiences and they didn't sound to happy with the program, not the features they always praised the features but hash's bad support or AM's stabilyti issues turned me off. It sounds like carrara's a better deal WAYYYYY! better deal. I'm not that new to 3D sorry if I gave you that idea :). I understand polygons, texture mapping, bunp mapping all that good stuff I just didn't realize vertex, mesh, and polygons were so different. I've been thinking about a 3D program for years but just didn't have the dough or time. I figure rendering characters would be much easier than drawing several hundred frames.

...the AM stability issues are ancient history. That was back at version 9. They're on version 12 now. Although some people still post negative stuff about 3 versions ago. I dunno why though ;) "didn't realize vertex, mesh, and polygons were so different" ...well. You'll pick up on those three words the first day you work with em ;) Either way. Good luck. You'll have fun no matter what you choose.

I saw hash doing demos of AM 11 or whatever version it was at MacWorld, Jan 04. And believe me it did not look stable, it crashed a few times during their demos. If it were not for all the negative things I read about their support, stability and the crashes I witnessed, I probably would have bought a copy as it was $75 less then normal pricing. Add that to the fact that the demo guy thought that Carrara couldn't stand up to AM and basically laughed at the comparison so I walked... ;-) I look at it every so often on their website (it is pretty awful isn't it LOL) to see what's new and I am impressed by the features, but reading some of the forums, it still appears that the Mac version is still not as stable as it could be. If AM has a demo I would really put it through some tests first... Carrara is really tough to beat in it's price range and above. Regards, Paul

...yea. Hash's website is awful. On the other hand Carraras character animation tools are awful compared to AM's. I don't much care about the web site, but I do care about the tools. I love Carrara, but it's in a different world from AM. In all fairness though Eovia has made some nice stides for character animators with ik and morphing, but they still have a long way to go. Oh. The demo guy is exactly right. Carrara can't stand up to AM on the character animation side of things, not to mention hair and a bunch of other stuff, but other things like rendering, skys, terrains Carrara has the edge. They're quite different tools, really.

Message edited on: 02/14/2005 00:30

:/ sigh I guess I'll start with getting faster hardware and buying a copy of 3D Basics LOL it seems I could always uprgrade to carra from basics and get a discount :) This a great website The carrara forum seems to welcome newcomers with open arms feels good asking for help here thanks everyone Tunesy, Nomuse, Zekaric, PAGZone, and thomllama.