Hi I have just purchased Carrra 5 can anyone suggest any essential plugins I should get. I have already thought of getting Toon Pro and Anything Grows as well as Wireframe Pro.

Message edited on: 12/20/2005 08:53

ToonPro and WireframePro both add a specific stylistic look to your renders. They are very cool add-ons , but you might use them less than you think.... Depends on if you are planning to do a lot of line illustrations or hi-tech displays. We all need more hi-tech displays, riiight? =^D If you will be building or texturing architecture be sure to check out Veloutat www.inagoni.com. It creates brick and tile patterns, but so much more including seemless 2D and 3D (volumetric) noise, pattern, and line shaders. (I also bought ArchiTools but haven't used it as much: it is good for making "prefab" box-y houses and office cubicals but not good with curves or "interesting" architecture.) I seem to use Veloutin every scene. DCG's ShaderOps and ShadersPlus have both been needed LIFESAVERS to "fix" problems in a scene. I recommend both if you are making your own shaders, and especially ShadersPlus if you are working with HDRI or Global Illumination lighting. I use at least one of the tools in these plugins in almost every scene. Inagoni's Baker and DCG's AnythingGoos are going to be useful when you need extra realism. Baker exports procedural textures as images so you can paint on details or damage (via Photoshop, etc), and A.Goos adds crevice grime and edge-wear based on the geometry of your model. Even though C5 has added many features that are similar to some plug-ins, so far it looks like most times the plug-ins still offer more options and control: Primivol for volumetric clouds and smoke, AnythingGrooves for displacement, AnythingGrows for replicating geometry on a surface.... All have options that go farther than the new features in C5 so don't count them out. happy shopping! holly

I bought them as I needed them.

One great thing about Carrara plugins is the price. Especially when compared to the cost of plugins for other 3D packages. That's another big bonus about Carrara: Affordable plugins! Stan

I can't imagine anyone having enough time to explore all the possibilites once both the DigitalCarvers and Inagoni plugins have been added to Carr5! And some people talk of other apps as well!!!---where do they get the time?

Depending on how much toon rendering you will be doing, you might want to explore the toon renderer included with Carrara. It may fill your needs, if not then you will be able to decide if you want the more powerful DCG Toon. The DCG toon plugin is better as indicated by the tests that Kixum posted, however, if your needs are like mine (sparse) you may get by with the included toon renderer. Yes as others have mentioned, Carrara plugins are inexpensive.

Attached Link: http://www.des-web.net/html/shoestring_shaders.html