Because upgrading to C4D9.5 from 8 with 5 modules has become to expencive for me,I'm thinking about switching over to Carrara5Pro.Will you be happy with C5Pro if you are used to C4D?

I think it depends on what you do with your 3d app. I would think c4d would be stronger on the animation side of things . Are you a previous use of Carrara ,if not try out the carrara 4 demo and see if it suits you (dont know when the C5 demo will be out) Mike

I hate these kind of answers, but it really depends on what kind of things you do with C4D. If you use all of the modules to a certain level you may find Carrara a lacking. Modeling in in C4D is much much more robust, however Hexagon which works in conjunction with Cararra (around $140) can make up some of the difference. I bought Silo (similar price) which I prefer, not as many features (in it's current release, new release impending) as Hex, but for modeling single objects (especially organic) it is really easy and fun, I prefer it. The spline modeling is far superior in C4D and allows for "growth" along a spline animation that is not there in Carrara and C4D also allows a lot more tweaking controls of all parameters. Hyper NURBS is a great thing. You can't even begin to compare the particle systems. There is no soft body dynamics in Carrara Pro. Feature for feature as far as what you can achieve creatively, C4D is greatly superior because you have much, much more variables you can control. However, if you are not utilizing that level of control than you might be very, very happy with Carrara. Carrara is much easier to learn out of the box (but then again I learned it first). The two aps approach most things very differently, so if you are already use to C4D you will have a little bit of mental adjusting to do, but Carrara is still very easy. The interfaces are vastly different. Carrara has some wonderful things like the built in terrain editor, which is exceptionally cool. You have much more access to Poser through Carrara. New features like the replicator is really cool. Once you get use to the difference, I think you will be very impressed with Carrara's Materials editor. It actually uses shader trees which you don't get In C4D. Carrara's material editor allows you to blend, and layer to your hearts content it's actually quite sophisticated and comes with a lot of great built in shaders. Digital Carver's Guild offers add-ons for Carrara that are very impressive and down right cheap compared to the non-shareware plug-ins for C4D. In some ways, Carrara's material editor is actually superior in how you actually create materials, all though the control of how materials are applied to objects or groups of objects is much better in C4D. C4D's use of tags is fantastic (if you use them) no such feature exists for Carrara. However, Carrara has some built-in drag-and-drop animation behaviors that are really quite good for quickly setting up some fast but impressive canned animation. There is no such thing as expression based animation in Carrara, although there is a plug-in called "Cognito" that can do some of that type thing with much less control. I suggest you visit the "Carrara Add-Ons" page on the Eovia site and look at all that is there to see if you can add back some of the things you loose from C4D to Carrara. In some ways I actually like the renderer in Carrara better (tile based verses scan line) Carrara's net rendering is way easier to set up. The quality of special effects rendering in C4D is much better (if you need them). If you are really hard pressed for cash you can buy a new sealed version of Carrara 3 on eBay for $40 (yes Four, 0) and then upgrade to Carrara 5 Pro for $299 (assuming you don't already have a Carrara product to upgrade from) Although $340 is still a decent hunk of change, it's nothing compared to even a single C4D module. If I were you I'd go that route. If you really don't like Carrara, than by comparison, you're not out that much compared to upgrading C4D plus modules. You might want to contact Eovia to see if they plan to release a trial version any time soon. The list of differences is quite huge, some subtle, some massive. It just depends on which ones apply to your work. What kind of work do you do with C4D?

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.

I am spoiled by C4D's render speed which is importend when doing animations consisting of some self modeled objects, imported poser characters and props all nicly litten with C4D's light system. I'm really curious about the Poser nativ-import.To import the Character from Poser and animate it in Carrara.(Maybe I can do some joint-tweaking there.)So it seems my decision is already made,for its a matter of money and C4D-8 still isn't lost for me.-----Thanks to you for helping making it clear.

Looking foward to C5Pro :)

Timberworlf. I also have the option to upgrade my C4D from 8 to the current Rev. 9.5 and I won't for 2 factors: 1. the upgrade price is way, way, way too much. Over 1 thousand bucks just cause i didn't keep up with the upgrades. reason #2 and the best reason. 2. I have C5Pro and I can really call it a "Pro" release it cover everything that I need. SDS, Fresnel, Objects as particles, replicate on surface, Ambient Oclussion, Sub-surface stattering, Translucency, Motion Tracking imports, export to RLA and After Effects....all of those cover about 80 % of why anyone would want C4D so do I spend over 1k in upgrade or do I just upgrade to C5Pro its a no brainer. C5Pro wins. So I will tell Rafie Barbos the C4D sales person that always calls me to sell me plugins and stuff that I will not be upgrading. Not even if she gives me another free C4D t-shirt. ;-) Ringo

OK,I want my C5-Box NOW!!!;)

Message edited on: 12/10/2005 00:37

Fortunately, Rafi can't hear you misspell her name over the phone ;p I'm personally going to wait to see what's in r10 before upgrading again. I do have r9.5, but the new hair module isn't that interesting to me, as I prefer to use transmapped Clothilde objects 99% of the time anyway. p.s: I want my C5Pro download NOW!!!;)