I just saw in Borders the other day the Carrara 5 Pro book by Mike de la Flor. Anybody have it yet and if so can you comment on it? I didn't get a chance to look through it because my kids were busy trashing the kids section.

I have it. I got at Amazon.com with a nice discount. I like the book. It is easy to read, clear and has some good tuts. I read thru the whole book and now working thru the tuts. Everything makes sense to my 67 year old brain.

In a word it is incomplete. You can learn more from various tutorial sources online. Save your money. I ordered it and sent it back to Amazon for a refund.

I gave a review of it on Amazon.

Sadly...this is true of many books. I find 99% of them really don't say a whole lot of useful to the point stuff. They can be of benefit for totally clueless people, but don't cover depth.

I haven't seen the Carrara 5 handbook yet, but I did get the C3 handbook by the same author. The tutorials were in the form of run-on paragraphs, instead of clear steps, and the book seemed to be more for expert Carrara users than beginners. So I don't think this latest book will be any different.

I have the C3handbook and didn't like it too much.I have seen the new one in my computer library last week...its look like the first one.I can say the same thing than Steamer and fuzzom.I stay with on line tutors and reference guide

I have a bunch of copies of the older Carrara Studio 3 book. Free for the asking, you pay just shipping ($2 in the US approx. if choosing media mail, I recommend $4.05 for priority mail though if you're interested in reading it this year ) http://www.thebest3d.com/carrara/freeBook.html Yeah it's not a book to teach the basics. That came with the tutorials with the program. And the 600-page printed dead tree aka reference guide misnamed user guide. If you still are hanging on to your beloved MacOS 9 system (or even OS8) you'll be happy to know that there's a demo version of CS3 that works for OS8, 9 and even 10 to Tiger and Windows. Just in case you're curious. Oh and I read somewhere (eovia3d.dnet I think) that the march issue of 3DWorlds or Computer Arts magazine has Carrara 2 and Amapi 6.1 on the CD coming.) It's not the latest but still one of the greatest there was and for starving artists an interesting option. 6.1 was my alltime favorite.

staigermanus, I think it must be april. Cause march doesn't say anything about that. It's got a personal edition of realsoft.

hm, or it was last year. I didn't check eactly the details. Seems to me 6.1 was out as a free download for a while, might have been that.

Yep. That was one of the best freebies from that mag.

I thought someone mentioned amapi was free somewhere, but wasn't really sure what they meant. Amapi didn't really catch on w/ me.

Yeah AMapi is an interesting little beast. Not easy to tame and master but if you use both hands and get the feeling of holding it in the left while chiseling and trimming at it withbthe mouse in the right hand that is a promising start.

I ahve tons of links to old tutorials from the days of 4.15, 5.15 and 6.1 at http://www.thebest3d.com/amapi

The 6.1 version was free ohn some computer arts or 3dworld issue last year if I recall. along with Carrara 2.

Carrara 3 added radiosity/global illumination with hdri and caustics. Formerly $299 we sell the remaining boxes now at $49.95 and offer free shipping in the US. Shipping from California so possibly no sales tax for you if you're not in California.

There is, I believe, Amapi 5.15 on the CD of Carrara 3.

The Pro version is still at eovia for sale, the Designer (Amapi 7) version can be found at Purplus.com - they've replaced it pretty much with Hexagon for non-Nurbs modeling needs.

Message edited on: 02/26/2006 16:02

Here is a list of things that are not cover in the Carrara 5 Pro book so if you are look to learn about these things than the book is not for you. Many very important features in C5Pro are not even cover for example the new particle system, replicator, surface replicator, rendering with ambient Occlusion, irrandiance map, Anisotropic lighting model, Fresnel, translucency channel, weight painting, new volumetric clouds, matchmoving, Vertex modeling, new selection tools, soft selection, some edge tools and surface tools. It does cover Vertex modeling ,spline modeling, basic hexagon modeling, basic poser native import, some texturing , After Effects export, 3rd party plugin and introduction to 3D.

yeah it's not a cover-it-all solution. Mike's books are looking at a handful of commonly used tools. If you want to go indepth into these particular tools they're good tutorials and project leads. But there are sooooooo many things to do in Carrara, you'll always find something that will have to be covered elsewhere. I recommend the Lynda.com tutorials as a companion, from Jack Whitney, who incidentally wrote some chanpters (several) for the CS3 handbook and I guess for the C5 handbook too? just a guess, I haven't seen the C5 handbook yet). Doug Sahlin is another resource, he did the VTC tutorials for earlier versions, not sure if he's doing one for C5 but it's worth checking on VTC's list of Carrara material. I have links to those at thebest3d.com too. There is a surprisingly large and growing list of new tutorials in the eovia3d.net and eovia.com tutorials areas. I think it's gaining momentum, which is very encouraging sings of professionals coming on to Carrara. What's not to like? Check www.icebergthemovie.com - click 'Enter' and see a Carrara render of a boat on a desert.

But Philip that is about 80% of what is new in Carrara 5 Pro that is not cover in the book and by that I mean not even mention.
In the backcover of the book it states this under features:

"Provides a complete, detailed guide to Carrara 5 Pro, including in-depth coverage of new features and tools."

I don't think that statement is accurate.

What the book cover is mostly modeling and that is Mike's streight and it shows. The other materials from the contributing authors is also good.
The book should be retitle the Carrara 5 modeling book.
All of this I will cover in my book review for Creativecow.net . I will also review Jack Whitney tutorials for Lynda.com and I think he covers a lot more material in his tutorials and the you learn more.
As for VTC tutorials I was going to author them but I don't like the terms of the contract.
I'll will finish my own tutorials with more indepth material and will distribute them for much less.
The tutorial making business is not very favoriable to the authors but it is very favoriable to the publishers.

Message edited on: 02/27/2006 13:20

Thanks for such an accurate perspective on this book Ringo. For sure it is not a Carrara 5 Handbook but maybe an introduction to Carrara. I will be sure to look for all your reviews from here on out. You are right on the money regarding your points on the Carrara 5 Handbook.

good pointers Ringo, thanks indeed.