Heh, Infocentral you should be railing against Alias/Kaydara, I got 5.5 for $200.00 ($400 total with the upgrade from 4.0 ple). They gouged the stuffing out of you. wayne k guam usa

I just bought Poser 6 and opened the box.
SHONNER

I just got home and what was waiting for me? The boxed version of Poser 6 Special Edition! I'm excited. Now look at this deal. I upgraded from Poser 5. I paid $89. For this I received 1) Poser 6 a very impressive application with a fair amount of content included; 2) Shade 7 LE which is another impressive 3D application (#1 seller in Japan); and 3) Bonus content. Now do I feel like Curious Labs ripped me off or tried to overchage me? Heck no. It was a great deal and I walk away happy. And the kicker is I don't have to buy plug-ins to fill the gaps.

BTW, if you haven't tried it yet, open MagicalSketch in Shade. Its a blast how it makes 3D models from simple line drawing. 3D model of a catus in under 5 seconds.

They gouged the stuffing out of you. >wayne k Once again wayne, wrong. I never said I paid $1,000 for it. I said the software cost $1,000 at that time and it remains at that price level. I went the same route as you but I only paid $200. I got the MotionBuilder 4 ple for Free in 3D world magazine. I upgraded to 5 for $200 (3D World Magazine subscriber discount) and got version 5.5 as a free upgrade. So who got gouged? Again, a great deal on a fine piece of software!

I'm sorry I was reading what you wrote, not what you where thinking. "When I bought MotionBuilder 5 it cost $1,000." my mistake wayne k If it only cost you 200 shouldn't your upgrade to MB6 cost only $50.00, following your 25% rule?

pssst. Magical Sketch is a rip of a free program;) http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takeo/teddy/teddy.htm

"If it only cost you 200 shouldn't your upgrade to MB6 cost only $50.00, following your 25% rule?" >wayne Ahh, moving too fast for you. Wrong again, wayne! Lets see if I can slooooow this down for you a bit. Here is what I said: "That's means I will pay 25% of base price to upgrade." For those of you that don't know what "base price" means, it means the asking price of the product before any discounts are applied. To put it in more familiar territory, it would be the $579 or "full price" Eovia is asking for Carrara. So wayne, the "25% rule" you are asking about would apply to the $1,000 base price and not the $200 discount price, upgrade price, or other reduced price. So following the "25% rule" it would not cost $50. Does this make sense or do I need to moooooove a little sloooower?

pssst. Magical Sketch is a rip of a free program;) Well, I didn't say it was a great program. It is fun and interesting that it can make 3D models with a simple line drawing in a matter of seconds. I think it is usefull for making quick background images (cartoon style). Other than that I have to agree...it is a rip. I certainly wouldn't pay for the standalone, but it is built into Shade along with PoserFusion. So...its FREE!

Info, thanks for slowing down for me. :>) It looks like neither one of us has math skills worth bragging over. We've taken this thread from some good posts on "Carrara Activity" down to splitting hairs over the upgrade cost of Motionbuilder. As entertaining as this is, should we continue or move on to something else? I've got one for you. What do you plug your Motionbuilder into for rendering your fbx files? I know that C3 does not do fbx, can Poser6 read fbx directly or work it through Shade? C4 has basic import support, but no export. wayne k guam usa

I really wish Carrara could import more formats. SOme of my friends use #ds or Lightwave and the import for obj files is sloppy, and you dont seem to be able to import lightwave at all. Most 2D programs can import like 20-30 formats, why can 3D apps do the same?

Import is one area that Carrara Pro does pretty well now.
Out of the box Pro imports 12 3d formats including LW object files. They also added Transcad that opens up 8 more 3d formats that you'd get from CAD type programs like IGES, STP and Rhino 3dm files.
In contrast XSI(Fn) supports only 6 or 7 3d file formats (icluding the fbx and xfrog add-ons I got from the two 3rd party developers).
The issue you brought up about shaders & uv mapping got a face lift too, with a UV editor inside the modeling room. It has most of the basic tools that you'd get using UV Mapper classic with the advantage of working with C's shader domains and on the fly editing without having to export-import.

They put a lot of work into the program and threw in Amapi Designer 7 and a bunch of plug-ins before setting the upgrade price.

If you don't need or use the extra tools they will not have much value, if you do need them they are worth a lot.

It stacks up pretty well feature and price wise to other apps in the entry to mid level range like TrueSpace, Strata 3D, and Cinema4d (the core app with no advanced add-ons)

How C stacks up to the high end stuff from XSI & LightWave being brought down into the entry level game is hard to say. That's when the demos come in handy, letting users figure out for them selves if it is going to do it for them at a cost they can live with.

wayne k
guam usa

Message edited on: 04/05/2005 08:45

C4 sounds great, Now If I can sell my firstborn to get it... Hmmm, maybe someone wants a semi used cat on ebay, or maybe a one of a kind gerbil with freckle markings... Hmmm.I suppose I could sell my liver, I dont seem to use it much. LOL I had Amapi 5 which came with my C1.1 but never really got into using it. Ill have to try it out and see how well it works and what its interface is like. I went looking at the Corel site for Bryce 5 to see what its going for now, but couldnt find it there. Did they actually discontinue it?

http://bryce.daz3d.com/ Corel gave up Bryce some time ago. It has been taken up by DAZ of V3 fame. They promise to keep it up and are even talking about upgrading it. Bryce is a great program but imho hampered by slow render times and no modeler.

If your liver resembles the virgin mary in some way, that might be a good way to raise some cash. ;-) Markd

Can anyone fill me in on why Corel folded Bryce?

Why does Corel do anything. Now they have PSP, I hope they dont kill that one as well. They dont seem to develope much on their own anymore, first wordperfect, then bryce, now PSP.. Eegads, they are on a feeding frenzy. It would be nice if they did a bryce upgrade. DAZ puts out some nice innovative software. Maybe improve the renderer and add that modeler. Its still better at landscapes than Carrara but a pain to get them to work together.

The plugin that comes with Carrara Pro 4 has trouble importing LWO and COB files from newer versions of Lightwave and trueSpace.