Has anybody heard anything about Carrara 5. What's going to be in it and when will it be released. It was around September or October of last year. I didn't know if it will have the same time frame. I would really like to hear if anybody has heard any news on it's contents.

Whoever u heeard from was from Martha Stewart!! :o)

There was some talk about it in the last Eovia/Hexagon chatroom event that I hosted. Charles mention a few things. Ringo

If the modeling room in C5 won't be improved then I will consider not continuing to work with Carrara. I have invested several versions and asked them to improve it but they did not. Beazer curve function and symmetrical pointers (mirror on sides) and improved tessellate tool is probably what all pro modeler needs. I do not want too many complicated tools in the toolbar like in Hexagon. What I suggested is simple and complete necessity tools to make a model, it is perfect for Carrara.

I used C4Pro (and the cool plugins for it) just for rendering when I did use it. I'll use C5Pro more often if its rendering, animation, physics, particles, and Poser 6 importing is improved.

On May 25th, 2005 during the Eovia Chat event. 1. Charles mention that they have plans for 3D paint for Carrara in a future version. 2. When asked about Transposer 2 for Poser6 Charles stated that they have not received anything from CuriousLabs. 3. About the VM in Carrara 5. Bob Stockwell mention that the VM will benefit from Hexagon Technologies. You can download the log from the yahoo groups carrara forum. Ringo

Oh NO!! How about just Hexagon in new room? What I suggested is to improve VM. It is very important to have simple and necessity modeling tools for productivity. I used Rhino and I am never happy with it. I am ready to stomp on my Carrara box. Please reconsider my suggestions and spread it around to the Carrara community and Eovia team members.

GWEB HATES HEXAGON

3D World magazine wasn't too impressed with it either.

Hi I was reading andf saw GWeb's post... "If the modeling room in C5 won't be improved then I will consider not continuing to work with Carrara. I have invested several versions and asked them to improve it but they did not. " I too think the model room could use some work. Also the region creation tool in the texture room needs a lot of work. The addition of a properly working rectangle tool for adding a layer to a layered list shader would be most welcome. Most of the time I just dont do detailed shaders because that function is just sooo impresice and hard to use. A better preview system with more accurate lighting preview is also on my wishlist as are a few other things. Has anyone else noticed the shader problem?

Am I the only one who thinks the modeling rooms should be eliminated entirely? Back in, whatever, 1997, when our computers were a lot less powerful, it was kind of nice to be able to work on each piece of a scene in a separate, responsive workspace. Now it's just frustrating for me. One of my renderings in the gallery shows some thread looped through the holes of a button. What a pain to make that - working on the thread in the spline room without being able to see the button in the same place at the same time. Yes, you can look at that little preview in the corner, but that's sub-optimal to say the least.

What they should do is put a floating preview window in the modeling room, like they have in the texture room, showing how it is interacting with the other bits and pieces. Other than that I agree. It is annoying sometimes havine to pop back and forth between the model and assembly rooms. But I wouldnt want to have to try and work on the object in the assembly area, that would get way too confusing. It would also help if you could bring more than one object at a time into the model room. Like the cockpit and canopy of an aircraft to make sure you get the best fit possible.

I thought it is nice to work on a individual model in a room rather than seeing all other stuff on it. Each model need to have its own grid for modeling. It is not impossible what you suggested. When user select a model it transparent all other models upon user's preference setting and then it zoom on the fly to selected model for user to work on. Everything can still be in the same room and able to see all other models.

rendererer wrote, "Back in, whatever, 1997, when our computers were a lot less powerful, it was kind of nice to be able to work on each piece of a scene in a separate, responsive workspace." With Ray Dream 3, we began seeing the tail end of those "three floating mirrored balls above an infinite checkered plane" ray-traced scenes. But hobby users were still using their 3D apps to model flower pots, yo-yo's, dish soap bottles, scissors, rusty coins, etc. Not many users were modeling tornadoes hitting houses with all the above flinging out their windows. So the "modeling rooms" GUI's seemed to work well for just one-object-scenes needing rendering. That's why mass modeling is done with Silo/Hex/Amapi/Wings3D type apps and then imported into scene renderers.

It would eb nice if Eovia would integrate a suite with Hexagon and Carrara in a single app. Use Hexagon's engine for the modeling.

I agree about eliminating the modelling rooms! They do seem quite out dated now and supporting their old technology slows down development of more important features. Especially when Eovia has already superceeded them in other programs.

"I too think the model room could use some work. Also the region creation tool in the texture room needs a lot of work. The addition of a properly working rectangle tool for adding a layer to a layered list shader would be most welcome. Most of the time I just dont do detailed shaders because that function is just sooo impresice and hard to use." There is nothing wrong with the layer tool. Check your UV mapping. I have yet to have a problem with any of the layer tools when the UV mapping is done correctly. If the model is not properly mapped then the layer will distort and be difficult if not impossible to control. "What they should do is put a floating preview window in the modeling room, like they have in the texture room, showing how it is interacting with the other bits and pieces." I remember during a discussion with Charles via email that they at some point wants to intergrate the rooms, but that they think that such a big step will take a few versions. One of the alternative ideas has been to have a shadow of the scene in the modelers. So you insert a VM object...and it switches to the modeling room...but the other objects in assemble are shown in a shadowy form. This way you can model seperate and yet have the other objects visible for accurate placement and turn them off when you don't want them there. Personally I like the rooms concept, and I'd be all for the shadow idea.

Im not a complete expert in C4, I can use it with some degree of confidnce but I have not gotten into UV mapping yet. I pretty much use the spline modeler for all my models, I get a headache with the vertex mode. I'll check into the UV mapping when I get a chance. I started with Ray Dream and worked up from there to C4, I kind of like the seperate modeling room, its easier to work on a section off in it's own private little cubbyhole.

It is not hurt to have the scene in backdrop or little transparent to match the model's shape with. It is hard to use preview when I try to measure everything with other models.

I usually have a second scratch sheet document window open, and Ill copy an object and do a quick render at 100DPI 1024x768, only takes a minute or two and it gives me a great idea of how the object looks.

I like the shadowy idea for other forms when your in the modeling rooms. The preview window that's there is tough to get the right feel, or right placement and it doesn't move when you move your 'camera' in the modeling room. I think the 1st step could be coupling the 'Directors Camera' views so the preview follows the modeling rooms view. Then when you move the camera in the vertex room, the previews angle changes to show what your looking at from the same vantage point. I like the 3d paint idea. Mcuh easier then UV Mapping/Photoshop/Import/Photoshop (again!)/RE-Import... Just paint right on your model in the Shader room and have the UV Mapping take place in the background, where it belongs. :) Also, a true curves editor for animation would be great. Something along the lines of AnimationMaster's where you can adjust the curves using tangents, control handles, corner points, etc to fine tune your animation.