Hi all,

Sorry if people think this is not a direct Poser question. I'm thinking of buying either Vue 5 or Carrara 5, I want to create scenes to put my Poser characters into. I have Bryce 5.5 but there are limitations with this package when it comes to Poser figures. Regarding Vue & Carrara, could you Poser people out there who use these programs give me an honest opinion on which is the best package when it comes to importing Poser figures & creating a scene with them, this would also include light work & maybe posing as well, to which renders the best.

At the moment my interest is with Carrara 5 because of transposer but I've also heard that Vue creates better scenery, or am I wrong?  I can't seem to get the Carrara 5 demo to work on my system at the moment (unsure to the problem as my system should be capable of running it) so I can't judge for myself.

I was going to ask on the appropriate forums for Vue & Carrara but I thought I would first ask the Poser community as I would imagine you deal with Poser figures more.

Many thanks.

Quote - At the moment my interest is with Carrara 5 because of transposer but I've also heard that Vue creates better scenery, or am I wrong?  I can't seem to get the Carrara 5 demo to work on my system at the moment (unsure to the problem as my system should be capable of running it) so I can't judge for myself.

1. I'd wait for Vue 6 before deciding, as it should allow reposing Poser content - and regarding the e-frontier - e-on relation, probably better than native import does in Carrara. Also Poser 6 materials are said to work in Vue 6 - they don't in Carrara. 2. Transposer is just the same as Vue's Poser import / Mover. Native import allows posing Poser figures and a limited use of Poser content in Carrara itself - maybe that will improve in further updates or the next version. Again, I'd wait for Vue 6 here ;-) 3. If you don't get the demo to run, how do you expect the purchase version to work?

Check out e-on's site; there should currently be a program in place where if you purchase Vue 5 now, you get the equivalent version of Vue 6 as a free download when it goes gold. This is good for quite a few reasons. V6 has been retooled; it now uses a spectral atmospheric model, so you have true volumetric clouds and accurate lighting. You will also be able to import shader setups from Poser 6 to Vue 6 accurately (currently V5 ignores the Poser shader tree). There will also be reposing ability of Poser figure in V6 (the add copy says that -all- poser dials for a figure will be available...if so, then the morphs as well as the XYZ controls should be tweakable). As of Version 6, Mover is fully integrated into both V6 Esprit and V6 Infinite; no plugin to buy to use Poser characters in Vue. Then there is all the goodies like subsurface scattering, per object light generation, hypervoxels, texture and geometry virtualization (spooling them in and out of active RAM, to ease the memory load effect of large textures and meshes), Ecosystems 2 etc. If you want or need modeling capabilities as well as an end stage renderer, and if you grok the interface, you'd probably be happier with Cararra. If all you need is that end stage renderer, go Vue, and I'd recommend Vue6 Infinite; that way you get the entire feature set, including network rendering. Check out Phoul's V6 show video for an idea of what Vue is changing into with version 6. This one was done with a pre-beta version of V6I.

At present, I would say Carrara. I have both Vue 5 infinite abd Carrara 5 pro. They are both very good fot remdering Poser scenes, and they both support direct import of pz3's, but Carrara has one additional Poser inmport  feature Vue does not: It can directly load cr2, pp2, hr2, etc.

I also have both, but I have hardly used Carrara at all. Possibly if I really dedicated the time to learning it I would like it much more, but I really feel the lack of the mini-preview that Vue has. Having been used to this feature from Bryce days, not having it is like missing a limb.

Incidentally, this IS a proper Poser question. Poser should be used in conjunction with other software. That's how it was originally designed.

Thanks alot for your input guys,  most appreciated!

What I will do is look into Vue more & then decide. I did in the past have a demo of Vue 5 which I only dabbled with & I wasn't really into Poser at the time. I'll download this again & see what I think. I like the offer which will be available for Vue 6!

Thanks again.

Quote - Incidentally, this IS a proper Poser question. Poser should be used in conjunction with other software. That's how it was originally designed.

Yep; due to problems in Poser's native render engine, a lot of poser users use soemthing else to render their scenes (Vue, Bryce, carrara, Lightwave, 3dsMax, etc), and so posts asking form help in picking one are definitely part of what this forum is for.

I'm curious,
Is it possible to import a scene into Anim8or and render with it.  I understand that Anim8or has raytracing et al, and it's free; so if Poser scenes could be rendered in it, one wouldn't need to outlay bundles of cash on Carrera or Vue.
DPH

If anim8tor can import obj's then yeah that should work. It's been several years since I've used anim8tor, but I do remember that it could export obj's. So if it can import them, then export your poser scene as  an obj and imoprt that into anim8tor.

Quote - Hi all,

Sorry if people think this is not a direct Poser question. I'm thinking of buying either Vue 5 or Carrara 5, I want to create scenes to put my Poser characters into. I have Bryce 5.5 but there are limitations with this package when it comes to Poser figures. Regarding Vue & Carrara, could you Poser people out there who use these programs give me an honest opinion on which is the best package when it comes to importing Poser figures & creating a scene with them, this would also include light work & maybe posing as well, to which renders the best.

At the moment my interest is with Carrara 5 because of transposer but I've also heard that Vue creates better scenery, or am I wrong?  I can't seem to get the Carrara 5 demo to work on my system at the moment (unsure to the problem as my system should be capable of running it) so I can't judge for myself.

I was going to ask on the appropriate forums for Vue & Carrara but I thought I would first ask the Poser community as I would imagine you deal with Poser figures more.

Many thanks.

I don't know anything about Carrara.  But I did buy Vue Infinite on an educational discount
and I really like it.  I can create beautiful scenes with it and my Poser characters import
directly into view with all the textures and poses.  Plus what's neat about Vue is that
it works dierectly with Poser.  So I have Vue and Poser running at the same time.
That way if I don't like the way a character is posed, I can change the pose in Poser,
save the pz3 file, and Vue senses that I have changed the Poser file and asks me
if I want to import the changed file. Then it brings the character right in with the new
pose in the same position as it was before in view.  Really helps in tweaking the
scene just right.  Unless Carrara can do that too, I'd say Vue wins hands down.

If you make a change to a Poser file that you have imported previously into Carrara by Transposer, Carra will not automatically detect the change.   There is a means of updating the imported file, but I can't claim I'd swear by it.   "Swear at it" would probably be more accurate.   If the scene is quite complex, the update process may hit a memory problem, after which you will probably find that, rather than adding your change to the scene, Carrara has actually deleted, or moved, something that was in the scene already.   As it stands, the Native Import function seems almost completely pointless.

V5I was disastrously unreliable for me when it first came out, crashing on start-up, but that was fixed in the first service release and it has been fine since then,  more reliable than earlier Vues and much better at preventing disasters when trouble does arise.   There is said to be a trade-off of image quality for function in V5I, i.e. the price of those ecosystems etc is slightly inferior render quality, compared to basic V5.   I still think V5I is the one to go for and there is a very good product called SkinVue, which works (I think) only with V5I.

Carra is not bad at scenery, except that its terrain editor is utterly bonkers.   Vue is much more usable.

If you can afford it and money is no object then I'd say get both programs.  But if you can only get one then I'd say Vue.

Dale_B makes some excellent points about the soon-to-be-delivered Vue 6I.  Posability in Vue......tweaking scenes without having to switch back & forth between the two programs......GREAT!  And the P6 shaders working in Vue......what more could you want?

It's true that you can model in Carrara.  But Carrara's modeling toolset is very basic.  A lot of Carrara users who model do their modeling in Hexagon -- which is a separate program that you have to buy.  And Hexagon has its detractors, too.  I've got Hexagon, but I haven't tried it out yet -- so I can't venture an opinion on it one way or the other.  If you are looking into serious modeling then you'll need to look beyond what Carrara can do by itself.

They are both good programs.  IMO, you really can't go wrong either way.  But for now I give Vue the edge overall.  And after Vue 6 comes out......at that point there might not be much of a comparison Vue/Carrara for integration with Poser.

Until Carrara (DAZ) comes out with something new..........

While we're on this subject, does anyone know how Shade compares? I remember one thread a while back where someone mentioned they had a difficult learning curve with the interface but I know that kind of thing varies from person to person. Shade has a modelor which is a plus factor. Also exterior scenes are not the only kind of setting for animations. If you're not doing something outside might Shade be a better option?

I've never used Shade at all.  There was a lot of buzz about Shade in the forums back when e-f first aquired Poser.  But that buzz seems to have pretty much died down for the most part.

A few individuals raised alarms about Poser eventually becoming nothing more than a plug-in for Shade.  But so far I've seen absolutely no evidence of such a thing happening.  I get the feeling that perhaps........the persons making that assertion didn't actually know what they were talking about.  Perhaps they were just being cynical -- which is a common disease.  Spread by casual forum contact.

I'm sure that Shade is a great modeler.  But I'd rather not see Poser made a slave to it.

I also haven't used Anim8or for a long time, but it's intended as a modeling program, not a renderer (unless it's changed a lot since the last version I had). If you want a free renderer, grab Bryce 5 from Daz. Works great with Poser figures, especially Poser 4 ones.

I have C5pro, works well right now with Poser, yes it imports the figure so you can pose inside Carrara, you also imports  the figures morphs so you can change them too. It also imports the dynamic cloth and hair. Great lighting and rendering. Wind force and particles and so on.

I'm buying Vue6I through a Vue4 upgrade to Vue5I. I like the idea of P6 materials and better in app posing. Vue seems to do water better. New lights , ecosystem, new windforce type tools and  new Animation system.  I have 2 parts to the Vue package. Shade, which Vue imports/exports shade files and Poser6. The three parts should make a nice whole package.

I have and use Shade 8.52. It's curve modeling is it's stongpoint. It's a spline modeler compared to block modeling so the learning curve is quite different. I use it with Hex and wings, each has something that is easier to do than the other. It has a much better render than poser. HDRI, AO lighting. Imports poser files.

I ,d like to see cut down version of both Poser and Vue just for illustrators , in other words get rid of everything to do with animation , keep all features but dump  animation totally , they would be quite stable and fast without the over head of all the animation code .

Rod

Stormchaser,

I think you need to decide what you want another render engine for.  Funny you should be looking at Carrara, and Vue, as both have architecture the others don't

Carrara is a modeler.  You will be doing alot of work on the mesh's of you figures with it.  Wether you are or wether you are not handy with Poser's Magnets, a full fledged Modeler will help you make your characters even more beautiful!

Vue is a fantastic landscape/atmosphere genrerator. Carrara has some of this, but Vue is all about it...With vue you're making beautiful scenes yo put your figure into.

So you get to decide, do you want to work in your figures or all around them?

=  )

Presumably, the animation code in Poser is also the code that handles dynamic clothing et c., in which case, even someone who never attempts to create an actual animation may still rely on having that code.     I haven't tried importing dynamic clothing to Vue, so I don't know how Vue handles it.   As far as Poser is concerned, though, I'd say it's the way that it handles memory matters that  makes for most of its instability.

I'm a very content Vue 5 Infinite user. Vue 5 imports Poser figures well, including dynamic cloth, but you'll have to tweak the materials. Dynamic hair does import, but it doesn't render very well, it's only usable with dark hair colors and medium to long distance.

I also have Carrara 5 Pro. A straight import of a Poser figure, including dynamic cloth and hair, goes very well. Carrara renders dynamic hair much better than Vue 5.

The downside to Carrara is it's user interface. I can't make heads or tails of it. And I sorely miss numeric entry for position and scale values (maybe they're in there somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it).

One of the great advantages of Vue is it's user interface. In less than 20 minutes I was able to create a decent looknig basic scene in Vue, while I couldn't do anything decent in Carrara even after half a day of trying.

I'm rather excited by the upcoming Vue 6. I'll go for the Infinite version, since that one will come in a 64 bit version, hopefully allowing me to create even larger scenes than I already do (20 human figures plus architecture plus lush foliage is no exception for me. But it taxes Vue 5 to its limits, even on a very powerful PC).
I'm also very interested in the new shaders and polygon smoothing. Right now I don't use Vue for closeups of Poser people, since the lack of polygon smoothing shows blocky shoulders. For closeups I usually render in Poser 6.

So I'd say download the demos. Both Vue and Carrara programs import Poser scenes quite well, both programs have much more powerful renderers than Poser. But you'll have to find out for yourself what user interface works best for you.

Carrara has numeric values for position and size, but not dials (unless I have been missing something in a big way) and only for figures, not for objects.   On the subject of hair:  in my experience, just about any sort of hair can slow Carrara down quite noticeably.    On the other hand, Carrara does render hair very well, in my opinion.

I'd be surprised if the strand based hair from Poser doesn't look a lot better with the shader import and polygon smoothing to take the edge off the strands.

I don't particularly like dynamic hair as it's currently handled anyway.  It's a system resource HOG.  But I understand that dynamic hair works beautifully in XSI.  Too bad that I don't own XSI.

I haven't tried importing it into Lightwave.  Perhaps I will.

Very interesting comments people, thanks!

It seems that I may go with Vue, as Vue6 would seem to offer me everything that I need, ie good importer of Poser figures, the ability to make great scenery & a good renderer.

I do like the Poser firefly renderer but I really also want to create full scenes, especially landscapes etc. I create quite alot of characters in Poser, now I want to give them life! I do use dynamic clothing & hair, so being able to import these was very important.

dbowers22 - I like the idea of changing the figure in Poser & the ease of use in which it can then be changed in Vue, very helpful.

You'll also find it much easier to lay out your scenes in Vue. The best way of working is to do the absolute minimum in Poser (just load and pose figures, props can be separate pz3s) and set everything up in Vue. So, for instance, if you want six of some prop, save a pz3 with just one, and then do the duplicating and arranging in Vue.

Shucks, and I didn't even get to mention the local windforce generators.... :/ Check out the Vue 6 showreel from Siggraph; Phoul did this with a -pre-beta- version of V6I. And Phantast is right; doing it this way 'breaks' the dependency on Poser, so you don't need any of the Poser app loaded to keep things working. Whether that holds for V6 is an open question; from all that has been said and not discussed over the boards, the V6 line is pretty much going to be a new beast, as so much of it has been either restructured or flat out rewritten (and the going consensus is that e-on probably got some help and feedback from ILM, who's taken to using Vue for background generation. Some 60 shots on the 'savages island' were actually done in hilly farmland, with the mattes done in Vue). That reminds me; I need to talk to Hogwarden, or one of the other Poser Python gurus. Mark Caldwell has written a .obj loader script for Infinite. It was to get Readyflow meshes of waterflow into Infinite during the rendering phase (loading obj 01, render, delete, load obj02, render, etc). If a similar app for exporting can be written for Poser, it could finally be possible to do a Metaform fluid sim and render it in Vue. Running water, anyone (granted, it would require the stream bed to be in Poser, but the end result could be well worth the setup time)? Maybe even small falls?

Thanks all.  Just learned about the new iteration of Vue from reading these posts.  Few questions to anyone considering buying/bought Vue 6.  Does Vue 6 espirit has ecosystem 2 included  or is this just with Vue 6 Infinite ?  Can you add an ecosystem 2 module to espirit ?  I want to use Vue 6 for poser import, renders, and basic scene generation.  Will Espirit be enough or should I go with Infinite ?

Cheers

I've been thinking about Esprit over Infinite. I would rather have Infinite, obviously, but I don't think my money will stretch that far, so hopefully Esprit will do enough of what I need.

Vue 6 Esprit will have an Ecosystems 1 module to buy (basically, the ecosystems that exists in Vuu5I). It will follow the same pattern that Vue5E did, with the Botanica module (plant editor), Light Tune (advanced lighting engine), Deep Access (world browser), Ecosystems as mentioned, and Hypervue (the network rendering has been peeled off of Mover 5). The question is which will be cheaper in the long run; plunking down for V6I now, or doing the module at a time upgrade.

I use C5 to render full scenes that choke Poser and D|S - I don't like C5's material management system so I do all my texture editing etc in Poser and soft shadows murder render-time. Transposer works briliantly - I haven't had any issues so far with it. The terrain creation seems okay but nothing of the wow-factor of Vue's ecosystems or that cool 3D terrain morphing tool. But C5 has been a great expansion to my Poser toolset unlike Bryce which is too confusing even after repeated use (I can never remember where anything is - even within single long work-sessions - I only know where to vaguely wave the pointer to see what text boxes pop up)

Vue has the superior terrain creation tools - but VI5 was too pricey to get at the ecosystems. If Vue D-esprit 6 has eco's then I'd say hang off buying C5 til you're played with the demo - C5 of course you can buy, try and refund if you don't like it before 30days have expired.

Then again Bryce 6 is due out soon also...they may have solved a lot of it's problems.

Cheers

Oh, Bryce is a dream to use once you get the hang of it. It IS a steep learning curve, but once you get to the top, it's a joy to use. Except it's totally underpowered compared to Vue now, and since Daz will be pushing Bryce in the direction of D|S, it's not likely that Bryce 6 will be well-integrated with Poser.

Oh, one thing about Vue's modules - Botanica is a sick joke. You can change the bitmap used for the leaves, make the plants more or less bent - and that's about it. You can't change the overall shape of the plant, the distribution of branches, the number of them ... terrible.

The only thing that comes to mind when comparing both is stabilty and resources needed. Vue is unstable at times and very resource hungry. Carrara is rock solid and less resource hungry. As for Vue doing a better job then Carrara when doing landscapes, I don't think so. Just take a look at these Carrara links....  http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1265361 http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1274175 (can't find the image I'm looking for, that was in the old galleries, but this will do)

In the hands of a master both can do equally good landscapes. Poser import is very solid in Carrara even when using a good number of figures. With Vue when using a lot of poser figures you will experience a huge slowdown and sometimes Vue even freezes.

Also with Carrara you do get surface replicatior, it works great, it may not be as advanced as Vue Infinite's ecosystem, but you get it with the standard version of Carrara and it works great.

The best think I love about Carrara is the abiltiy to model. I mean real modeling. Carrara beside great landscapes allows you to model your stuff within Carrara with all the features you'll ever need. Modeling in Vue is a no go, it's way to limited. Let's not forget particles, bones, ik chains, excellent animation capacities and volumetric clouds.

I've waisted lot's of years using Vue and always telling myself, the next version will be more stable and more efficient in memory usage, but it only has become worse. I'm regretting ever getting Vue 5 Pro, even though it's a cool application, compared to Carrara 5 it's a nightmare. When comparing the two at the time I did fall for E-On's commerce tactics, but I really should have gone with Carrara.

With Carrara it feels like I've finally come home. I love it, excellent tools, lot's of features, works great with Poser and works fast.

The attached image is my latest render in Carrara, all buildings done in Carrara, plants from Carrara and figures from Poser.

Well, myself I'd rather do modeling in a dedicated modeling app rather than have a bit of bolt-on modeling capability.

Well, myself I'd rather do modeling in a dedicated modeling app rather than have a bit of bolt-on modeling capability.

I've been using TrueSpace for years up to v6.6 and the Carrara is just as good on modeling. Carrara for sure doesn't have a bit of bolt-on modeling capacity. It has Splines, Vertext Modeling, excellent boolean operations. Polygonal Modeling with Soft Selection, 3D Manipulators, Smoothing (Subdivision Surfaces) , Cuts & Bevels. I don't call that bolt-on anymore, that's full modeling capacities.

Carrara does have memory problems and they are a lot worse than V5I's, in my experience, although rather like the ones Vue 4 used to have.   With Vue 4, if a scene got complicated, it tended to be a toss-up:  do I save the scene and risk a crash that way, or do I invite Vue to give me a multi-fingered gesture by trying to render it?   I have had that same experience with Carrara 5, too, whereas V5I is much more reliable (again, in my experience - no doubt, different hardware configurations make a difference).   I have known V5I to fail to render something, but still leave me able to save an intact file and successfully render it later.   If Carrara fails, forget it.   It will come out with that cryptic message about line 42 (or is it 45?) and you can forget about saving the file.

And Phantast is right:  Carrara's modelling element may be a "nice-to-have" in a basically non-modelling application, but buying Carrara because it can model (to some extent) is like buying oranges for the sake of the pips.

First to say, aeilkema, the images you linked to are absolutely beautiful. Gorgeous, gorgeous work.

I haven't used Carrara yet, but I've been happy about importing Poser scenes directly into Vue (particularly after the penultimate Vue update (version 5.10)). Before that, I was always nervous, lol. I love big scenes, tons of vegetation... But I used to have to save after almost every other major change to be sure I wouldn't lose my work.

That changed after the update, though. I find Vue to be far more stable now. I love the way it handles Poser scenes, the render possiilities, etc. And then for importing huge scenes into Vue, I found this thread very helpful. (Link will open in a new window).

What I love about Vue 5 Infinite as well is the option for infinite layers. Someone told me that hiding layers in Vue while you work saves on memory, and I found that to be true. I was also able to render enormous scenes this way without a hitch.

I haven't used Vue in a long time. I have recently used Carrara to render an image that Poser was taking forever to finish. If you're interested I posted a quick review of my experience in this thread along with a link to the image I rendered in it. I will say this, after 9 hours Poser had rendered about 1/4 of the image; Carrara completed the entire image in about 3 hours and the result was fabulous.

Damn you, tainted_heart! I was bent on not learing Carrara for a while, but you convinced me. Saving time is most appealing.

Muhwahahahahah...Muhwahahahaha, I am so E-vil! Com Mini-me, our work here is done :D

Nothing wrong with wanting to save a little time. Don't give up on Firefly completely though. Something I'd like to see, although it's more wishful thinking, is for DAZ to include Poser Shader support in a future release, or at least produce some shader products to make it easier to mimic things that can be done with Poser Shaders, things like pwSurface and pwCatch or a stand-alone Poser to Carrara shader converter.

Quote - Muhwahahahahah...Muhwahahahaha, I am so E-vil! Com Mini-me, our work here is done ...

LMAO!!

"Something I'd like to see, although it's more wishful thinking, is for DAZ to include Poser Shader support in a future release,"

Don't count on it. Daz chat at ArtZone talked about DS intergration, not Posr. The DS/Poser split is starting so you are going to need to make a choice as to which way you want to go. Bryce is now for DS, Carrara will go that way as stated by Daz and Vue will be Poser. Which Vue 6 will be using Poser 6 shaders.

I have Carrara5Pro, I really like using it,so it's not like I don't know what the apps can do. But, had I known that Daz was buying Carrara, I most likely would have waited and seen what Vue was going to do. I don't use DS, I use Poser. It's not hard to see which way to go for my needs. Though I find having both Carrara and Vue will be a big advantage.

I think that's a shame. It makes more sense to expand the Poser support in Carrara since it already has a solid base in the program. There is still a huge Poser user base out there that would appreciate a little more support from DAZ. I will not switch to D/S when I Poser fulfills that need for me. If DAZ goes that way my money will move to Vue.

Daz would be shortsighted to stop supporting Poser in order to boost D|S, and usually, Daz are not shortsighted.

So what happened to Bryce?

I think Daz will continue to support Poser thru Carrara ebcause so many carrara users use it with poser and would not buy future editions that didn't support Poser.

IMO, the most prudent course of action for daz would be for Carrara to continue to support Poser as well as D|S, and for Bryce to be D|S only, as it has never had direct Poser import

Daz maked way too much selling Poser content to Poser users for them to evenconsider dropping Poser support. They'd lose a large percentage of their business if they did.

Quote - I think Daz will continue to support Poser thru Carrara ebcause so many carrara users use it with poser and would not buy future editions that didn't support Poser.

IMO, the most prudent course of action for daz would be for Carrara to continue to support Poser as well as D|S, and for Bryce to be D|S only, as it has never had direct Poser import

 Daz maked way too much selling Poser content to Poser users for them to evenconsider dropping Poser support. They'd lose a large percentage of their business if they did.

 

While most of us agree that this is a "prudent" course for Daz, I don't think they will.  Sure they provide current poser content...but only because they're third party brokers do.  Daz Originals have only full support for D|S, then poser 4 support.  In the Artzone chat they mentioned that they would work on combining Bryce and Carrara.  They've already been combining D|S and Bryce and it's supposed to be more so in 6.  Bryce only supports poser in that you can import basic (poser 4) scenes in to D|S, that has no advantage over Shade or Vue which are working towards full poser support.

If you're working with Poser then Vue seems to be the better app.  It's direction is moving to better and better Poser intergration.  Shade is the same way.  Between the three they make for good low to mid range set of software.  Vue also supports a range of high end apps.

The D|S, Bryce, Carrarra, Hexcon package seems to working towards one Uber app.   This does not bode well for poser support in the future.  If you are planning to get Carrara and either move to D|S or never upgrade then you should be okay.  But I think the DAZ/Poser rift will never get smaller.

I think which program you get depends on what you plan to do.  Having said that, I'm a Poser/Shade user so I went with Vue 5i and will be recieve the Vue 6I upgrade.  So far I've been pretty pleased.  Render times are reminisent of bryce for complex scenes but you can resume renders at any time (currently I'm rendering an abstract modeled in Top Mod.  It should take 6 days but I'm only rendering it while I'm at work or asleep, I stop the render to work on other things or play games).  Bryce only has some of that capability.

I've seen some nifty images with Carrara but I haven't played with it much. 

Vue d'Esprit 6 will require plugins to get a good deal of the features, including Ecosystems.  If you want all the plugins already go for the Vue 6 Pro...it's dEsprit with all the plugins for poser, lighting, Ecosystems etc.

In the Artzone chat they mentioned that they would work on combining Bryce and Carrara.  They've already been combining D|S and Bryce and it's supposed to be more so in 6.  Bryce only supports poser in that you can import basic (poser 4) scenes in to D|S, that has no advantage over Shade or Vue which are working towards full poser support.

I've heard that mention also, that would mean that you would need D/S to run Carrara. DAZ is loosing Carrara's users base very quickly at the moment by the way they handle Carrara and if they do that, they will loose the original user base pretty much. But then again, DAZ only used Bryce and Carrara to push their own content, so what elso do we expect. It's a pitty, it really is.

Merging Bryce and Carrara isn't a bad idea at all, I do like it, but throwing in D/S in it as well is a shame, imo.

Quote - Merging Bryce and Carrara isn't a bad idea at all, I do like it, but throwing in D/S in it as well is a shame, imo.

It is, but what are you going todo?  DAZ doesn't support Poser anymore, at least not in any all encompassing way.  They still paint highlights on all their maps, which is nice for Poser 4 users..but for everyone else?

DAZ has repeatedly ignored pleas for any Poser integration.  What I mean is by poser intergration is this:  getting poser's features into Bryce, not just meshes, we can do that just fine without DS.  Foleypro's proclamation on the DAZ forum that we're all gonna love rendering all our animations in DAZ Studio once Bryce 6 is out seems silly at best.  I love rendering in Shade, Poser and Vue...and the features of Bryce are not competitve.  Will the be one day?  Who knows, all we ever hear is DAZ's favorite four letter word:  Soon. Which can mean anything from a day to years and years. 

I like the fact that Vue, Shade and Poser are stand alone apps as well as integrated apps.  It lets you piece together what you need.  Why go with Bryce when what I want can be had now?  Because we need to give DAZ time to learn how to program?  Don't make me laugh.

I love Bryce, I find the whole situation really bad.   They can bank on content till the cows come home...but it seems as if third party cows are the ones that carry them.  Ah well. 

Could the NDA be hiding all kinds of things that the new Bryce can do.  I really doubt it.

The thing is Carrara has good Poser support at the moment through Transposer 2. It just a shame to see yet another application destroyed by DAZ's content pushing strategy.

Somehow the idea of combining Bryce and Carrara doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't see what they could get out of the end result or even what the end result could be. Unless they mean to scarp the Bryce render engine and infuse Carrara with Bryce's terrain building capabilities. Even looking at it like that it still doesn't make a lot of sense. How could they combine the two apps without leaving behind features that each is famous for? Boggles my mind...

As I started the thread I thought it only decent to state which app I now having running on my PC. Thanks to the opinions of people here & elsewhere I opted for Vue 5 Espirit. I would have like the Infinite version but I just can't afford it. I will however be upgrading to Vue 6 Espirit when that comes out.

I imported my first Poser figure (Shamara) into Vue & it worked with no problems, dynamic cloth & hair included! I gave it a quick render & I was very pleased with the result. I'm just in the middle of my first scenery piece, it's very basic but I am learning. I must also say that I love the interface, very straight forward, buttons just where you need them. I was used to the Bryce interface but I must say when it comes to positioning objects in your scene Vue is much better. I can see me spending quite some time on this, well I'll have to if I'm going to achieve the kind of results I'm looking for!

Thanks again everyone for their input.