I'm looking to buy one or the other, I already have Vue 4 but as ever need more power, more features, blah blah....anyone have experience of both to compare, Carrara's getting the vote at the moment due to the faxt that it's got a good range of plug ins from 3rd party developers and I can download it but Vue 5 is also quite impressive from the results i've seen. I've tried both demos but still can't decide. Cheers

Hmmm,

It really depends on what you intend to do. Carrara Studio 4 (CS4) has a lot more to offer for doing general 3D work than Vue does. But Vue obviously excels at outdoor/landscape scenes (I'm not a Vue user, just from what I've seen). If you want to make your own 3D models, then the choice is obvious since Vue does not have a modeler.

The plugin support for Carrara is growing, and there are many great plugins available now (at reasonable prices). You can do some very good - to outstanding landscape work with CS4, you just have to work at it a little more than with Vue. Personally I think the render engine in CS4 is one of the best available, but it looks like Vue 5 has an awsome render engine also.

Carrara gives you many high end features not found in applications in an equivalant price range, and is a very good choice for general 3D work in a small studio or for a serious 3D hobbiest. With the current range of plugins available, you can do almost anything with CS4. The vertex modeler isn't as good as some of the high end apps (work flow and advanced options), but it is easy to learn and use. The spline modeler is top notch, and very powerful. The shader system is extremely versatile and powerful, with a wide variety of plugins that make it easy to achieve just about any effect desired (even normals mapping, and geometry modification).

My 2 cents (probably worth about 1 tenth of 2 cents): I would recommend getting CS4, since you already have Vue4. It will expand your 3D tool set a lot more than upgrading to Vue5 would. You can use CS4 to create 3D models for use in either CS4, or Vue4, and will get the added bonus of a great render engine (much like the one available in Vue5).

I hope this helped and didn't make the decision more difficult. Good Luck!

Thanks for that. Modelling is only a monir issue as I model in Silo about 99% of the time & anything I can't do in there I move to Truespace. I think CS4 is looking more & more like the favourite as it's not soley landscape that interests me.

I use Carrara a lot, but honestly I preferred the modeler in Ray Dream studio for basic modeling, I use it for that then bring stuff into Carrara for fine tuning, detail work, lighting, skinning and final rendering. It actually is faster for what I use it for. But yes, C4 is the better choice for modeling, Vue is better at Landscapes.