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Just read your review and after reading the advertizement on Amazon I would say that you over rated the book unless you ment to award the cows pictured above.

Thanks for the accurate review. I ordered this "HANDBOOK" and immediately returned it to Amazon for a refund. Great Review!

:) Thank you guys for making me feel utterly clueless and insignificant. How lame must I be to find this book actually helpful? And I am finding it quite helpful.

You're not lame, it is actually a very good book for people new to Carrara. Obviously the main complaint is lack of coverage of some of the new features.

I think part of the problem might be expectations from the book.

As a user new to Carrara, the book is very useful, it covers the basics, teaches you what Carrara is about, and gets into some advanced techniques.

As an experienced user of earlier Carrara versions who already understands the basics and is looking for something to give them a leg up on all the new features, it is lacking.

I for the most part agree with Ringo's written review, I don't agree with his rating. He is the experienced Carrara user looking for the leg up. He mentions that the book has fine material for new users of 3D, but then gives it 2 of 5. This is the kind of thing where perhaps the review needs different rating for a different audience. As the experienced user it may only be a 2 cow book, but for the new Carrara user, I think it's higher.

Regards,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
Carrara plug-ins

From what I'm reading, it sounds as if it does not offer a great deal that I did not get already with the C3 Handbook. I'm sorry to hear that there is not more attention given to the new C5/Pro features. That said, I will likely order the actual C5 manual directly from Eovia in the next few days, as that will probably better meet my needs.

How do you order the C5 Manual? I've looked all around their site and can't find it anywhere. And do they have one for Hex?

I took a look at the book in Borders book store yesterday. I am still very new and inexperienced with C5 and I still found found the book almost useless. The Eovia C5 User guide (not exactly satisfying either) has considerably more information. This forum and others like it along with Eovia's user guide are the best thing I've found to learn Carrara. A littel bit better for NEW users would be the tutorial site: lynda.com The much earlier book "Carrara STudio 3" by the same author is even better than this last one - even for C5 users it seems to me. You can get the earlier book for around 5 or 6 bucks at: http://www.thebest3d.com/

The Carrara "5" Handbook was supposed to cover the new features of Carrara 5 as it states on its cover. In this area it fails miserably. I think its rating of two cows (or less) applies to this book because of how it was promoted and what its title states. It is not a Carrara 5 Handbook. It is an introduction to Carrara. In fact in comparing it to The Carrara 3 Handbook it is not much better than a rehash of the same stuff. I bought the book and found it virtually useless and I am a far shot from a Carrara expert. That is why I bought the book in the first place (because of what it claimed to be). It is a deception,

I am a new Carrara user, nothing before Carrara 5. I sat in Borders and browsed this book for while. Aside from not covering the fetures of Carrara 5 that I was interested in it is really poorly written. Some sections paragraphs I was really confused and had to reread 3 or 4 times to understand what the author was saying to do. saved my self $50 bucks and can spend that on a plug. Thanks to all the people who help in this forum with tutorials and screen shots to help people. KInda disapointed as I was looking forward to this book, but not now.

I really miss some more detailed information about the new Carrara 5 features. Good to know that this book will not help me. Hopefully more tutorials regarding C5 will come up...

ValleyMist, Below is the URL for ordering the C5 manual. It is $29.00 plus shipping. I, also, had to search to find it. I ordered it. http://www.eovia.com/purchase/webstore_ww.asp

Thank you Paula, Just ordered it.

"As a user new to Carrara, the book is very useful, it covers the basics, teaches you what Carrara is about, and gets into some advanced techniques." Yes...and don't forget to read Part VIII while your there too! Geesh...

Actually that chapter is not as useful as it could be either, three plug-ins certainly doesn't cover the plug-in market. You could probably write a book just covering that! Two of the tutorials I wrote new got cut because of space constraints and I think a couple of the ones that used to be there got cut too, and this is perhaps more of the problem.

Having written a couple of other books, often the biggest challenge is figuring out what content to keep because of the publisher's page count mandates. I won't defend they way Charles River worded the promotional stuff on the back, but once you've taken care of the things you have to (basic 3D, animation, modeling spline and vertex modeler, shading, bones, morph targets, displacement, sub-surface scattering, rendering, vectorstyle, working with 3rd party programs like Hexagon, Poser, After Affects, and plug-ins) there's not much space left. Looking at the book, I'm betting CRM put a hard cap at 500 pages.

Here's where everyone here can help out the community. Write some tutorials covering the new features. It looks like 3DXtract has sort of wound down, but there are other sites that can host them if you can't. I've got bandwidth to spare, I can host. Get them added to eovia's tutorial list. I found that one of the best ways to force yourself to learn about something is to experiment with it enough that you can teach it to someone else.

The page limits on the web are much higher!

Regards,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
Carrara plug-ins

Well, as someone very new (few weeks)to Carrara, I went ahead and bought it through Amazon. I'd say it's not quite bad enough to return, but not nearly as good as I'd hoped. I also have the Eovia manual, though, and between the two you get almost enough info to do something. Fortunately, I've worked on a lot of other 3d programs, so I've got a good idea of what it ought to do. I just go around figuring out how to make it do it. :-)

Hello, This is Mike de la Flor, the main author of The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook. I have been working on new projects so I have not had a chance to visit the groups lately. So you can imagine my surprise at all of the commotion about the new The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook. I am not going to address the negative comments in or the "review" of the book as that would just be a waste of time. Instead let me tell you about The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook and what it covers and you can make up your own mind. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 are an introduction to 3D concepts. These chapters help to explain the basic concepts and terminology in modeling, texturing and animation. In my experience I have found that many people, even those who have experience in 3D, still have nagging questions about how things work. These chapters help to answer those questions. Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 8 help the reader get to know Carrara and its new interface and feature preliminary tutorials in texturing and animation. Chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 feature no less that 5 in-depth, modeling tutorials. Chapter 9 has the reader model a complete NASA Delta rocket in the Carrara Spline Modeler. Chapter 10 guides the reader through box modeling and entire character from head to toe. Chapter 11 focuses on the Vertex Modeler's new surfacing tools to model a complete Piper Cherokee airplane. Chapter 11 and 12 focus on Hexagon 1. Chapter 11 written by Jack Whitney has the reader use a combination of line and box modeling techniques to model a character head. And Chapter 12 written by Patrick Tuten, covers line and surfacing modeling in Hexagon to complete a detailed and very cool concept car. The modeling tutorials in this chapters 9 through 12 are unique, complete, in-depth, step-by-step guides to modeling with the new features of the Vertex Modeler and many of the features of Hexagon. Outside of this book there is no other source that covers the modeling tools so completely. Chapters 12 and 13 cover the texturing tools in Carrara. Chapter 12 features three tutorials on working with shaders, shading domains and the UV Editor. Chapter 13 deals with Subsurface Scattering and Displacement Mapping. Chapter 14 and 15 tackle the complex world of animation. In chapter 14 you will learn to create morph targets to make a character speak. Chapter 14 not only covers the tools you will use to make a character speak but also the lip-synching concepts. In chapter 15 Peter MacDougall painstakingly walks the reader (no pun intended) through rigging a character for walking. Peter's walk cycle tutorial is one of the best and most thorough I have ever seen. And you get to learn how to do it in Carrara no less. Chapter 16 features 5 complete tutorials on rendering with Carrara. The topics covered are: Global Illumination, HDRI, Caustics, Motion Blur, and NPR. Again each tutorial is a step-by-step tutorial with nothing left out and no guessing required. Chapter 17 has two very good tutorials that cover working with VectorStyle 2. You will learn to output to Flash and get tips on what works when outputting a 3D scene to Illustrator. Chapter 18, written by Andrea Newton, is almost a Poser "how-to" manual by itself. Andrea's tutorial on integrating Poser content into Carrara is very thorough and fun to boot. Chapter 19 written by experts David Bell and Lisa Yimm features an exciting tutorial on compositing Carrara renders in After Effects. Now you will know what to do with those renders after you are done working in Carrara. Finally, chapter 20 covers the very useful and fun plug-ins from Digital Carvers Guild. Written by Eric Winemiller (the developer of Digital Cavers Guild plug-ins) chapter 20 features three thorough tutorials on Anything Grows, Anything Goos, and my favorite Cognito. The book's CD-ROM is stuffed with hundreds of incremental and supports files that will help you get through even the most complex tutorial. An inspirational gallery full of Carrara animations and illustrations are also in the CD-ROM. This book took eight expert Carrara users over six months to write. I personally consulted with Eovia to iron out the content in the book. I also worked closely with Eovia during development to get as much as possible into the book. However, it is impossible to write a third party book that covers everything. Three planned chapters had to be cut due to time constrains and one of the contributing authors sadly experienced a sudden death in the family. This book is a PROJECT BASED book which takes a different approach to instruction than your standard software book. This book guides you through each unique tutorial in step-by-step increments, leaving nothing to the imagination. As such this book lives up to the advertisement on the cover. Admittedly, there were some timing issues with software development and the publishing schedule that made it impossible to include the last minute new tools. As anyone who has every worked on a beta team knows a program is developed right up the night before the final CD is burned (known as the golden master). To those that have been posting negative and nasty comments about the bookthanks for your comments. They are very valuable to me and I will take your input into consideration for future editions. If you have any questions about the book please feel free to contact me directly at mike@.... Many thanks, Mike de la Flor

Oops that is mike@delaflor.com Mike

Sorry Mike but your book hardly covers the new features of Carrara 5 Pro (not even close). Most upsetting is that the books promo is not true or accurate.

steama, you dont have to apologize for your opinion. its ok and i thank you for your comments. however, let me clarify that the book is not intened to cover ALL of the new features in C5. the book is intended to teach how carrara works and to teach the fundamentals of modeling, texturing, animation and rendering in a project based format. If you look at the back of the book it clearly states that it is intended for beginner to intermediate users. however, the books does cover many new features such as SSS, displacement mapping, advanced rendering, advnaced modeling and so on. For those that are not familiar with publishing we authors work with stringent, budgets, deadlines and page limits. Often we do not get to put everything we want in the book because we run out of space or time. And in this case several new features were added after the manuscript was turned in (or those chapters were turned in). Thankfully new software books are published roughly every 18 months to two years. please send me a list of features that you would like to see in the next edition and I will do my best to include. Better yet if you are up to it you can be a contributing author if like. I use contributing authors so that the reader benefits from the experience of many experts. I have written books where I am the only author but I like collaborating with several experts, it makes it more fun :-) Thanks again Mike

Heh. I suspect it'd have to be 900 pages (like Dan Ablan's "Lightwave 8") to keep everyone reasonably happy. Lotta work, lotta time, and you can't really charge much more for it. It's good that you had a chapter on the Poser native importer. I'd have liked to see TransPoser discussed more. I do like step by step exercises. Walk me through something once, I usually remember it. You just can't please everyone, though. If a beginner buys it, it might be too advanced. If a long time user buys it, it might be too basic. If you cover every single thing, it becomes more of a reference manual than an instructional one. Oh, well...

what advance rendering from C5 is cover in your advance rendering section? I sure didn't see Ambient Occlusion or irrandiance mapping the TWO new advance rendering features in C5? and are this Carrar 5 features in the book? New particle system, replicator, surface replicator, ambient occlusion, irrandiance map, anisotropic lighting model, fresnel, translucency channel, weight painting, new volumetric clouds, matchmoving, include/exclude lights, bounding box display, smoothing of multiple objects and not all the new tools in t"he vertex modeler." Some of the new Vertex modeling tools yes but not rest of things on that list that are all C5 new features. Yes you did spend a great deal in the modeling room after al l it is what you know best in Carrara but I was hoping for more Carrara 5 related stuff. The material in the book is good and I pointed that in my review but I cannot call that a Carrara 5 Pro book it just doesn't have the most of the new stuff. You know that is what most users wanted to learn. Ringo

Thanks for your understanding Gordon and your positive comments. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me. mike@delaflor.com. With every book I always get many emails from folsk asking for help and I try to help each one! :-) Thanks again, Mike

I've written (and performed) large-scale instrumentation pre-operational start-up test procedures at nuclear power plants as a start-up engineer. Even though such procedures were reviewed with far more rigor than software user manuals, the same holds true; everyone is a writer with strong opinions, but few will do more than offer comments on how the documents should have be written!

Regardless of who writes user manuals or procedures, there will always be a better way to do it which will never be done! All the Carrara experts should try and write an all-inclusive C5Pro manual some day. I guarantee it will be a real learning experience, and it will be criticized as lacking in major ways. I imagine a truly inclusive C5Pro book would need about 1200 pages to really cover all the bases. I seriously doubt it would ever get published assuming one could even stomach such an unrewarding enterprise.

Im not stating that I believe that (negative) comments made about this book are invalid. Im simply stating that those who have issued strong negative comments on it might want to explore the possibility of placing things in context to the real world. A very tiny fraction of the worlds population cares about Carrara 5 Pro, and publication resources are allocated accordingly.

Notice that even Eovia does not issue a manual with C5Pro anymore as standard practice, and no ones manuals seem to adequately cover the capabilities of the present generations of 3D software. I always found Carrara manuals to be deficient, and my deficient Vue 5 I manual even started falling apart after a few weeks of gentle use.

Thank you for your wise comments LCB. I appreceiate your point of view. I believe that honest criticism is a good thing and it improves things. However, being nasty and negative and then not offering any constructive comments or not stepping up to the plate yourself and saying something like, "I will spend six months writting my own Carrara book" is really easy to do. Criticizing and complaining and then doing nothing is easy. Mike

IMHO...

It seems that it takes much more space and time to explain the more "advanced" stuff. Not to mention the experience to do it right.

If this book was better at being everything to everyone then it would likely be double it's size of more. Adding all the necessary "Advanced" text would likely have delayed the book by many months. If you're looking for "Advanced / Expert" material then would you really want to pay for a book of which half you may ignore ?

As single book that's now "Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced" it's questionable whether that's necessarily fair to the author when you can get for as low as $30 on Amazon.

Also, as two separate editions: "Beginner/Intermediate" and "Advanced/Expert" aren't you more likely to get what you paid for ?

I think for what it is, it's great. Hopefully, Mike will still want to come out with an "Advanced / Expert" edition to possibly satisfy the rest of you. :)

I don't mean to offend anyone. I'm just posting my musings about this situation. :)

Message edited on: 03/08/2006 08:11

The problem is not the difficulty of writing an all inclusive book on the features of Carrara 5 Pro but rather the misleading promotion information on the book cover is not true. This is also a for profit book and deserves the critique on this topic. Don't say you are selling me gold when it is actually lead. Just to make the point clear here is what is published on charlesriver.com to promote this book: Whether you are a new or seasoned user, youll find everything you need to get started with Carrara 5 in The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook. This edition has been completely updated to teach everything you need to know about Carrara, especially many of the new and advanced features. Explore new and creative ways to use Carrara through a great collection of step-by-step tutorials written by industry experts, including two bonus comprehensive modeling tutorials with Eovias newest application Hexagon. These hands-on tutorials progress from basic to advanced, guiding you from the basics of 3D modeling to the challenges of animation. The book is structured so that the process of creating 3D illustrations and animations flows logically from one chapter to another. And by using this approach you can easily learn the technical aspects of working with Carrara Pro and achieve a tangible understanding of the workflow involved in creating 3D content. By the end of the book, youll know how to use the powerful tools of Carrara 5 Pro, have new and improved 3D skills, and have gained experience in 3D production concepts. This is a must-have resource for new and seasoned users a like! This promotional statement is UNTRUE and everyone would realize this if they read the book. The book needs to be promoted honestly and it is not. Forget about the difficulties of writting a complete Carrara 5 Pro book. This issue, once again, is the misleading promotional statement. I read this book and sent it back for a refund because it simply was not what it CLAIMED TO BE.

I have politley tried several times to explain in the forums and groups what the book is really about. It seems that several people here are simply out to make thier nit-pikcy points at all cost repeating the same thing over and over. Several people (other than me) have also tried to explain how books are produced and written and but the nit-pickers seem to be stuck on the same gear. If you look at the back of the book it clearly states that the book is for Beginner/Intermidiate users. Now, if I write a book that covers only all the cool features and teaches people how to work with new tools but they don't have a foundation of 3D basics the book would be truely useless. I don't only write books but I have been a college teacher for many years and I approach my books much the same way I teach. Starting from the beginning and bulding on the fundamentals and moving to more advanced topics as space, time and schedules allow. Several people have pointed out that a book that covered everything in Carrara would be about 1200 pages, which is a conservative estimate. Unfortunately, reality steps in at this point because publishers are not willing to invest tens of thousands of dollars into a book about a program that has a limited user base. To set the rercord straight I DO NOT make any money writing Carrara books. In fact I take a huge paycut for the months that I write/edit the book. None of the contributors make any money. And my publisher has bearly recouped thier investment in the first Carrara book if at all. In fact, I wrote a book on Photoshop and 3ds max that has done very well and was recently translated into Japanese. That book has sold well because Photoshop and 3ds max have millions of users. I write Carrara books because out of a sincere desire to help out the Carrara community. However, it is apparent to me from the comments here and the Yahoo group that I may be wasting my time trying to do a good thing for the Carrara community. Maybe I should stick to writing books that will be apprecited by their communities and will make me some money. As you can tell I am getting irritated with the same old comments being repeated over and over. I have tried to be nice in both the Yahoo group and here but its getting me no where. To those of you continue to by unfairly critical why don't you try your hand at writing your own Carrara book, instead of just complaining? Mike

Nobody is being unfair to you or your book.

Maybe changing the promotional information so that it is accurate and not misleading is appropriate. Keep on writting books, nobody is saying you should not. Many people like your books and you do contribute to the Carrara community more than most. I bought the Carrara 3 Handbook too and feel its promotional material was accurate and truthful.

The only problem is the way The Carrara 5 Pro Handbook's promotion creates expectations it does not deliver on. This is not a personal attack so please don't take it that way.

Message edited on: 03/08/2006 12:42

Mike, it is apparent that a lot of people are/were very interested in this Carrara 5 Pro book. Some preordered or had it on wishlists. There is a market, and there are people excited and interested. For me a beginner/intermediate book on Carrara 5 Pro that covers Hexegon and dedicates time to a different applicaion didn't help me or interest me. The new features of Carrara 5 got me to buy the program, and I wanted tutorials on those features. I did not find that in this particular case. I think that is where the disapointment if any is in your book. Practical Poser 6 just came out and it's the first Poser book that was not a rehash of the Poser manuals. The Author took time and asked the community what they wanted to see and what they needed in a Poser book. Hopefully you will continue to write books and hopefully a Carrara book is in you in the future. my 2 cents.

MachineClaw, the funny thing is that I not only solicted requests from the user groups (search the Yahoo group) I also posted regular updates on the book and its contents. At that time I never heard anyone complain. And not many really bothered to make suggestions. And on the Hexagon issue that was a request from the group. The only people that worked with me on the contents were Bob and Charles at Eovia. I actually sent them the entire table of contents to get their feedback. I never intended to write a "manual" with tiny tutorials on each and every tool or new feature. That is why there is a manual. The book I wrote not only teaches how to use Carrara, but when you are done you understand how 3D works. Most books will teach you what buttons to push to get a result. That is simply not how I write or teach. For instance where else can you can an complete turorial on modeling an entire human being in Carrara and then learn to make them walk? Or where can you learn how to do lip synching in Carrara? I approached the book from a real-world, project based point of view. As I said in a previous response, I hear a lot of complaining but I don't see anyone stepping up to write this all inclusive, "magical" book that everyone is wishing for. It's real easy to critize. Mike

MachineClaw. I agree with your comments. Regarding the "Practical Poser 6" I am currently doing a review on it and I am finding it to be an excellent book. It is one of the very best books for Poser. You can really tell the hardwork that went into producing such an excellent book. In depth information on major Poser topics that most users need help with. The Textures nodes, rendering,cloth creation, dynamic clothing, hair and much much more. I can't say enough good stuff about that book. But no need to tell you about it. :-) Ringo

I didn't see this thread until just now and without taking sides or saying anything good or bad or anything else, the first thing that comes to my mind is my mom telling everyone "go to your room"! lol (I have 7 older brothers and sisters and that happened a lot growing up ;) I'm loud and obnoxious I know, but I like to look at both sides of everything and more importantly the bigger picture (if I can). Carrara 5/Hexagon are great programs and there's still alot to learn about them (for me at least). So first off, thanks to all the guys and girls who make that learning easier and fun. Book or no book, forum or no forum, yahoo or no yahoo etc... I don't have to name names or say who of the dozens of folks here and on the other lists have helped me learn in the last couple of years. There's too many to count, but every time you help me or someone else out you do a good thing and that's just the way it is, so we should keep on doing just that because that's why we love 3d,... All of us. Carl did drop off the map I guess with his new baby so to wrap up the new tools/features we'll have to get creative maybe. Any Ideas?

Yeah, this doesn't seem productive. It's just a book. Steama, you do seem to be very bent-out-of-shape(if that was not your intention sorry :)). Books are personal. I have NEVER found a perfect book. I also find the promotional stuff means nothing, it never does.Heck they tell you artificial flavored sugar water will make you a god, but I don't believe it...Somebody does since they own the planet. I look at the book personally and read reviews. I don't buy otherwise unless it's dirt cheap.It's just not that big of a deal.It's a book that's all. We need more docs.I do think advanced vs beginner is the way to go. To have no books out there on carrara won't help anybody. This is the only one I have seen why is that?

rem mem, I agree, and I was bent-out-of-shape about the book (I felt ripped-off after I bought it). I just want this thread to die the death it should.

Message edited on: 03/09/2006 13:13

I think a manual called The Carrara 5 Bible would sell more books and also more copies of Carrara. I'd pay $79 for it.

Remember the Carrara 1 Bible from many years ago? :-)

Yes. I like how the author gave his own book a rating (the only rating given) of 5 stars on Barnes & Noble.

LOL,there's a rating system for ya. I do remember seeing that book. Wonder why no more got written? Maybe the demand issue.Well there does seem to be more docs coming, hopefully that can change.So far the web is best, but until light-weight ebooks take main stream books are handy portables.I do hope 3dxtract doesn't dissapear tho, I have found some good issues there.

Mike, As a fellow author, I understand the work that goes into writing a book. My last book was about 1200 pages and I'm writing another now that will be around the same thickness. However, you need to always keep in mind that the people offering criticism are your customers. They paid for the book you wrote, and they certainly deserve the right to complain if the book didn't meet their expectations. You must resist the urge to take such criticism personally and accept it as part of being an author. My 2 cents. Jim

Having witnessed the Charles River debacle of the P# Handbooks (case studies in worthlessness that approach parody), I hesitated to purchase Denise Tyler's Poser book when I discovered they were the publisher. (It turns out to be a good book for beginners and, as advertised, useful for learning the new stuff.) The compliants here about the C5 Handbook inspire a wave of deja vue. I found the reference manual very useful after I got over the initial miff of having to purchase it separately (THAT should have been in the product description!), and based on what I'm reading here, I won't purchase the C5 Handbook. Charles River strikes me as a less-than-honorable publishing house, and I will continue to approach their books with suspicion. M