I have Carrara which i purchased as an upgrade for Ray Dream Studio from Metacreations (Remember them) years ago I like the interface and I see Carrara Studio 3 for under $100.00 and am wondering if it is worth the cost. I have Truespace 6.6 and i know Carrara #4 is available but i dont want to spend that much on an upgrade yet. Any feedback on Carrara 3 is appreciated.

Attached Link: http://dealmac.com/deals/Carrara-Studio-3-for-49-shipped/89153.html

I recently saw a deal where you can actually get Carrara Studio 3 for $49 shipped from Purplus software. Use the link above to see the details. The coupon may be expired, but even so, the regular price at Purplus is only $80, so it's still a good deal. Is Carrara Studio 3 a worthwhile purchase? Considering that most of us paid more like $300 for it, yes, it's a great purchase. It does depend somewhat on what you want to do with it, but at this price it's not a big risk.

Carrara 1 was, unfortunately, not very stable (very nearly, in fact, "broken" software.") It got patched up quite a bit when it became Carrara Studio, but both Carrara Studio 2 and 3 added a ton of new functionality across the board; subdivision surfaces with creasing, global illumination and HDRI light maps, a full-function parametric tree generator... I think you should try the demo to Carrara4. It's a 30-day fully functional (won't run plug-ins or render larger than 640-480). Carrara4 really isn't that different from 3 -- and up until July 14, the upgrade to 4 from a registered version of 2 or 3 is well under two hundred dollars US.

Thanks for the tips I recently saw that Purplus was selling copies on EBAY for $55.00 with $9.00 shipping, I was curious if it was more stable and functional than Carrara 1. I really like the Inteface and rarely use my Truespace program.

I'm running C3 at work and have C4 pro at home. Yes, there aren't a lot of obvious diferences, but I do find that now that I'm used to C4 at home, I'm feeling frustrated by the lack of features in C3. C3 is VERY stable compared to C1, and you can do a LOT with it. I'd really recommend making the jump. Then, if you decide to upgrade to C4, you'll have an upgrade path to jump from. Good luck!

Yup. In my experience CS 2 was when it actually got stable enough to use. Also, I don't know what they did, but in Ray Dream the vertex room was so slow as to be intensely frustrating. By CS 2 it is wonderful, and the addition of UV mapping and creasing of subdivision surfaces made it a dandy little modeller by CS 3. Since I basically model for Poser, and sometimes render out of Poser, what the upgrade to 4 mostly had to offer to me was some very minor improvements in the modelling room -- and the included copy of Transposer, which works very smoothly. Today's the last day of the sale at Eovia (if my calender is correct). 15 percent off does make a difference.