This may show twice, but it didn't show up when I posted.
Hi, I just started working with carrara 4 pro. It definitely has it's pluses, however, I am a little bothered that I have to purchase so many plugins for things I feel the program should do(especially at that price point). Anyway, I don't want this to be negative,tho it sounds like it. But the 2 packs they have really seem a must to do quality work. Veloute especially. The materials are not up to snuff in c4p,(along with other things). That is another $200(on sale) I am looking at VUE 5, Modo which seems to include a lot more.(No plugins) or heck Cin4d intro level. Though it appears they don't do everything carrara can do, seperately. So give me a sales pitch...concrete points. I am considering cutting my loses before plunking more cash into plugins.

You certainly can't go wrong with Modo or Cinema. If your starting out I would highly recommend Lightwave as it has by far the most training material available (check amazon for books on the various 3d software). Truespace is priced about level with Carrara Pro since the price doubled from version 3 to 4. This is a good package that contains a lot of features built in (no plug-ins required). Download their demo and register you e-mail address. You will start to receive "special offers" of up to 60% off and FREE training videos for its use. Then there is SXI which is feature film quility and cost LESS than Carrara. Good luck in your decision.

Attached Link: http://www.newtek.com/lightwave/partners/e-on/

I just got off the NewTek website and they are currently offering Lightwave 8 and Vue 5 packaged together for only $795. Now how is that for a deal? In the last twelve years, eleven Emmy Visual Effects awards went to productions that used LightWave as their 3D tool of choice.

Carrara's plugins cost a lot less than Lightwave's or Cinema4D's do. Vue 5 Infinite can't export. It's mostly for importing OBJ and Poser 4/5 figures. Carrara Pro 4 works great for importing and exporting.

Carrara Pro 4 has a pretty good renderer, while trueSpace doesn't (you need a plugin to get better rendering for it). Try not to put all your eggs in one basket. No one app can do everything you want as great as you want. Expect to rely on plenty of tools for various projects. Try the demo apps first to decide which tool you'll need to buy first.

Message edited on: 09/04/2005 17:30

Good info. Import/export is important. So is rendering. The procedural textures being so limited w/o a plugin really got me. I am trying demos, reviews etc... A lot of demos are highly crippled tho, which I don't understand, I guess they are concerned about crackers. I actually researched and tried the demo before buying c4p, eovia's plugins cost more than the other devs so it was a better buy w/ the other features it had. The problem is you are trying to educate yourself about a complex subject and and the real deal on a product. The plugin thing is a slippery slope, trying to find what you will really need and what it will cost is tricky. Right now I want a versatile, productive and smaller budget tool for modeling and animation. I did not like vue 5 statement about anti-piracy feature causing instability(sounded weird). Thanks for the info again.

Vue 5 Infinite's anti-piracy feature and instability are too different problems they are having. They are working on both of those problems though. I've bought all the plugins for Carrara, so I am biased towards users requiring them for advanced features in Carrara. Other apps are being offered for around the same price as Carrara Pro. You may want to see if other apps (or free upgrades) are thrown in with them between now and Oct 31.

No one app is the silver bullet for every modeling need. Most studios I've worked for use multiple 3D packages depending on the assignment requirements.

Carrara has it's quirks but it's one of the best all around apps I've seen. Professionaly, I use it almost everyday. (The "name" software also has it's share of quirks by the way!) While there are many plug-ins for Carrara, they are VERY reasonably priced as compared to one-trick plugs that cost more than the entire 3D software packages for some of other big name programs. Also, Carrara has an outstanding render engine. In fact, you can do some things more easily in Carrara than Maya or LW!

LW, Maya, and some of the others were designed for the film/video animation marktets. Do you need complex water animation, smoke effects or explosions, mulitpass rendering for integration with AE? If that is your focus then at this point in time, the "names" are still the gotta-have-it apps for those needs.

LW and others are dropping their prices because more economical software packages, including Carrara, are beginning to meet them feature for feature.

I do have Vue 5 Infinite which is a very cool program - but it's no modeler. It's outstanding for environments. (Although Carrara is pretty good itself right now) Also, the Infinite system for replicating trees and such within a single scene is wonderful. That said, Carrara has a couple of plug-ins available (Anything Grows with Tip Objects and Replica) that do similar things. (Anything Grows is the closest since it populates the scene with instances instead of actual geometry like Replica does)Vue is a nice complement to Carrara - which is why LW is combining it with their offer too.

I don't know when the next version of Carrara will release, but the folks at Eovia usually add some amazing stuff with each release. But, you have to go wherever your budget, timeline and needs take you...

The attached image was done for an assignment combining Vue for the background and Carrara for everything in forground. The Vue scene was used as a background in the Carrara scene. Additional modeling done in Hexagon for some of the complex objects.

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I have found c4p easy to use, altho finding info is harder to get a good under the hood handle. For now I can only afford 1 app, so for diversity it sounds like c4p is strong there. But they do all seem to specialize more than c4., which really adds up.(BTW, e-on says in their faq that their anti-piracy feature had caused problems w/ certain upgrades which they patched. I don't like that mentality...not that I am not seeing alot more of that all over.) Unfortunately, Amapi 7 I did not find easy to use, I wanted to work w/ ai drawings, but the learning curve is steeper so I thought I better stick w/ c4p for now. How are the upgrades handled for plugins? It is not that I mind plugins per se, but I bought pro trying to avoid so many other purchases. I guess I would like to see them packaged w/ it. Those 2 packs at their best deal(which is quite a savings) are another $200 which seem to add very critical "modern" features. Some are including these features in their packages. (For c3 people it is cool they can still get these.)Then probably around february a new version will be out. Knowing, the limitations and addons needed for these packages is very helpful tho.

I am looking at truespace 6.6 w/ a wary eye, with their paks. But they have 6.6 w/ 4 paks for $399 til sept 13. They also have a 30 day money back guarantee, so they say. I always think that is good especially w/ software. I played with them yrs ago.

I don't think trueSpace 6.6 has as good a renderer as Carrara 3+ does. Some of the paks included with tS were written for trueSpace 5 (don't know if they'll work with 6.6). Make sure you look at the quality of photo-realism renders in Caligari's gallery.

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Thanks...believe me I am lurking and trying the demo. They include the amazing render w/ caustics etc.... I am concerned about the fact that they upgrade weird...you pretty much pay for 6 to 6.5, also flakiness.(I do remember this)It has tons in this deal, but I actually am turned off by so many plugins. They say 5 and up. I want to know what I have when I upgrade w/o all that headache. Also 7 is still not out.(no network stuff tho)I definitely am realizing that the render in c4p is very good tho(import/export too). This is what you get.(trueSpace6.6 plus aniPak, dePak, fxPak and rayPak - These Paks add easier control over skeletons, water surfaces that respond to animated objects, additional modeling tools for creating edge loops, new rendering options for the ultimate in realism such as caustics and global illumination, ways to simulate the movement of cloth, and much more!)The modeling and materials sound intrigueing... I was really hoping for more from Amapi.I would love to use my wacom tablet more in 3D work. For cheap program curvy 3d is pretty interesting.

The choice is certainly a tough one when it comes to buying a 3D app. I tried trueSpace's interface for about five minutes and wasn't interested in learning another GUI.

I had already spent two weeks learning everything about Amapi 7 and found it a quick and easy modeling tool for making accurate 3D objects for OBJ exporting. Carrara has an easy to use GUI for scene assembly and render camera positioning. Vue 5 Infinite is easy for assembling scenes for rendering as well.

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I know quite a few of the Poser merchants use Truespace and Wings to develop their products and Wings is a free program. Carrara is good all around program and if it weren't for the big jump in price from 3 to 4 I would recommend it. In the market today I consider it like Real Estate - overpriced. I think you can now get much more bang for the buck. Take for instance that Lightwave offer. Lightwave sells for $1500 and Vue for $600. That's $2,100 worth of software for $800. Than there is SoftImage SXI that is used by movie studios to produce their special effects and it costs less then Carrara. That just blew the top of the 3d industry when that happened. Cinema's price has dropped but still is up their. TrueSpace is about the same price as Carrara but they are always having offers that are much lower then the retail price because they need to compete with the price drops of serious apps. Eleven Emmys is nothing to shake off. If you are investing you have to ask yourself where are you now and where are you going. If you want to go pro then go with the pro's don't go hobby and listen to my app can do everything those other apps can do. Yeah right. Then why haven't the studios used your app in building their films? Why haven't your app won Emmy's? Why... And as someone has pointed out before it takes more than one app.

Bottom line it really depends on what you want to do...then look at the software packages that fit your needs. I think in general we always think we will use all those "great, high-end" features, but the reality, at least for me, is that I don't (ever check out www.rustboy.com?). Mark's post (#7) makes alot of sense so read it again. I own C4D, C4Pro, LW, and a few others. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses but workflow is very subjective so try the demos like you mentioned. Plugins are becoming a bigger and bigger part of packages. Hell, watch LW load a scene and watch the list of plugins... C4D because of gaining popularity has more people developing great plugins everyday. LW probably has the largest plugin database of the three packages listed by far. If price is a major factor then pound for pound, feature for feature, LW wins, followed by C4Pro and C4D. But if you don't like the workflow of LW then it really doesn't matter does it? Demo, demo , demo it and look at the forums and galleries. Best of luck

Yeah, It is a fine line between productivity and over kill:D VUE 5 infinite I was eyeballing because I like Landscapes. I think the open source community is also waking people up. Where are good places to get the scoop on LW? What are their upgrades like cost-wise? C5 may be awesome, just seems like C4 is a bit overpriced. The plugin people handle their plugin upgrades well tho. Certain things need to be built in to a modern 3D program. There literally was not a single book written for c4 and only one for c3. LW8 maybe slow on rendering ...will check it out tho.(wow says free up to 9 included). I have entered a dimension far beyond 3 I can tell you that, w/ all to consider:D

btw, rustboy is amazing. He must have the patience and commitment of a saint to produce the way he did. Either that or serious OCD :D I would be interested how much C4 was used (tho I know infini was the previous SW before it became carrara) wow.

I have the book. It is very inspirational.

I also have the book. Brian Taylor is using Infini-D. It just goes to show that you don't need the best most feature ridden software to make good work:) I'd agree the LW deal is a good one. Like I told you on the yahoo list. :) Give everything a try and see what works with you.

Attached Link: http://www.spinquad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2432

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12385&Form.ShowMessage=2401614

Attached Link: http://www.flay.com/

Yes, forgot about flay.com. Great site. Went there and selected a search to just list FREE plug-ins. It came back with 797 available FREE plug-ins for Lightwave. Hummmm...that should keep someone pretty busy for awhile. And one doesn't have to worry about their finances either. Wow! I went over to associatedfx.com...are all 14 of those plug-ins FREE? Very impressive. {:-)

Version 9 won't be a re-write of Lightwave?

Version 9 is a start of the rewrite, I believe the core will be finished or mostly finished. Quote from Newtek's website on 9.0:"The changes that have been made for the initial 9.0 release complete the necessary reconstruction of LightWave to begin implementing the desired new workflow." Its just a start to reworking LW. I'll wait on upgrading until things are stabilized and my wallet says its ok:) Which could be awhile. "797 available FREE plug-ins for Lightwave." Yep! Really a lot are very similar. Also, a lot of the plugins are scripts. Good stuff if you own LW.

I watch the Lightwave training videos online and start getting a headache after a few minutes of the GUI menu clicking going on. If I can watch a demostration of a 3D app and not go insane, it's a 3D app I usually end up buying. Hexagon and Amapi 7 are 3D modelers that are easy on the eyes to watch.

Good point shonner. I'd say I'm the same way. To me I'd say that Hexagon is the best program Eovia has at the moment. Great design and implementation.

I know NewTek has stated they have been working on a 64 bit version of LW. I wonder if LW 9 will have the 64 option?

LW really needs to get a downloadable demo. Not too thrilled to have to request a demo cd. I particularly don't like the color choices. I would like to see more customization in all these programs. Since artist are using them it should be obvious that these things would be important. I think being able to read or see what you need w/o craning on a good sized screen should be obvious. C4 layout isn't bad, just don't really need different rooms and they change the way things work depending on what modeler you are in, not sure why. The screen colors are not so great tho and font adjustment would be nice.

Yeah, I had an issue getting the demo from Netwek. Took 3 months to get it last time when I requested a demo. Kind of annoying I think.

In LW forum they said they are working on a downloadable cd. Just found out they require a usb lock...very annoying. I understand piracy is a problem, but I wish they would focus more on customers and product than on over the top security choices. Serious waste of a port. I don't like how many of these software companies try to make everyone seem a border criminal. The opensource community seems to largely feel that way too. I have seen cad programs w/ this. It appears 8.5 update is including a 64-bit port, but I am not sure about details.

I do like that they are letting you update from any previous version. It does bother me alot that many companies now make you upgrade w/ each version or you can't upgrade at all. When you are the only game in town I guess you can, but that doesn't mean you should. They don't seem to really appreciate their customers. Altho if you are publicly traded company you have to be greedy by law.

I've worked with hundreds of computer techs over the years. Nearly all of them pirated software. That's one of the reasons they got involved with computers in the first place. LAN parties tend to turn into pirating parties. I don't blame Newtek for using boondoggles.

The way I look at it is whatever keeps the costs down so the average person can afford it. If using doggles keeps people from pirating it and increases profits which in turn enables companies to lower the price on thier software so be it. LW now is very reasonable! With the Vue 5 offer I give it a BEST BUY rating. Emmy's are coming up; lets see if LW wins again...

Well it would help if it was a pass thru, tying up a port for that is a waste. I am not so sure that the savings get passed onto customers, but that would be nice. Having to increase profits every year can have a down side. Shonner, I am sorry that has been your experience with techs. While it may be your experience, that is sad, it certainly has not been my experience. I don't fault people for earning a living, there is a fine line tho, at times, just like with education.

Apparently, there have been some compatibility issues w/ these devices and other devices. That would be the pits. However, looks like v9 uses an activation code. Since this is cheaper and easier to manage seems more prudent.

The advantage to the customer using the doggle is that you can install the progrom on as many computers as you like. You can only use the program with the doggle. So you could have a copy at work and one at home and one on your laptop etc. and on one will be able to use it without the single doggle. With the activation code you are limited to one computer; you pick which one. I have been using the doggle for years now and have not had any problems with any of my programs and I have a lot of them.