Today I put some more hours in.

At this point, I don't yet know how to get beautiful skin tone and soft shadows in Carrara, so while they are there in my poser image, they are NOT there in the Carrara image. I am assuming that once I'd learn the tools, I could get similar results in Carrara without affecting render time very much.

So, on to dynamic hair: Thanks to DustRider I followed a path that involves turning the settings inside Poser before importing into Carrara. That was the key. I gave her more strands, reduced the width of tip and root (but not as much as DR did) and most importantly, reduced the clumpiness. Clumpiness is the key.

I am reporting that using the transporter bridge, indeed changes you make to the Poser pz3 are reflected in the Carrara file. Pretty damn cool.

Anyway, what I'm showing you here is about the 14th render I did, tweaking both in Poser and in Carrara. The hair renders are not yet apples/apples. I think they could get there, but I have to say I am already near the top of the settings in Carrara.

At the end of my experimenting I attmepted to turn on just a small amount of GI, namely AO only, with modest settings. Ah, now way Jose. I turned the render off after 1/2 hour and it was not even 1/4 of the way thru the hair yet.

I can't put any more time in this this weekend, but may resume during the week.

One significant issue: If I can get Carrara to at least MATCH poser's output and render time with this type of tight close-in work, then that to a certain degree constitues a partial "go" signal, with the idea of purchasing a dual core or dual processor machine or two, which Carrara takes advantage of.

::::: Opera :::::