I have C4DXL V6, not quite the same as V8, but I was in a similar situation. I purchased a "used" copy of V6 several years ago, thinking if I liked it I would upgrade to 7 for $299. Within 2 weeks of my purchase, version 8 was released, and the upgrade was now $799, and a little more than I wanted to invest. I also got a good deal on a used copy of Carrara Studio 1 to evaluate within a couple of weeks of the C4D purchase (I was just getting into 3D, and I just don't like demos - they are either crippled, or time out before I get a good chance to evaluate - so used, fully upgradable software was a good way to go for me).

Within a couple of months after gettin CS1, CS2 came out. I really liked the features available in Carrara for the price, except for the vertex modeler. But I had C4D to do the modeling, and Carrara for rendering, etc. To make a long story short, I upgraded to CS2, and never looked back. The GI rendering in CS2 was great, and it has only gotten better!

I Have C4Pro, but haven't gotten C5 yet. Given that you have C4D 8 to "fall back on" for modeling, you really have nothing to lose getting C5 Pro (and probably a lot of money saved over the C4D upgrade). The network rendering is great, HDRI and GI are simple and easy to use, you get a tree generator, direct import of Poser figures and Transposer2 included, very powerfull shaders, and the spline modeler can do certain modeling functions easier than similar modeling in C4D (I did try the 8 demo). It is my understanding that the vertex modeler has been greatly improved, which was a weak point in previous versions of Cararra.

The work flow in CS may take a while to get used to, and the flexibility for creating very complex models is not as good as C4D (even Hexagon falls a little short here - but Hex it is so easy to use that I rarely use C4D any more). C5 doesn't have a cloth simulator, which C4D 9.5 does have, but with Transposer2 you can use Poser 5/6 for cloth sims.

The bottom line is that Carrara is much more affordable than C4D with all the bells and whistles (IMHO). If your on a tight budget, then it's hard to beat Carrara, especially with all the great new stuff in C5.

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