I just received an email offer from DAZ advertising a special deal: Purchase C5 for $87) or C5 Pro for $192 and get Carrara 6 for free. My assumption is that can only mean that Carrara 6 is getting close to release. Anyone hear any rumors on when it may be coming?

Hmmm...  I just got the same thing.  My question is, will there be a regular and pro version of Cararra 6?  I'd like to buy 5 for $87 and get 6, but would be disappointed if there were a 6 pro with desirable features, unless I could upgrade somehow.  5 Pro is just too much for me right now having bought TS 7.5 and Hex 2.2 in just a few months.  I'm so glad they're announcing it though, I'd started to worry. 

I was a little concerned. Carrara seems to be one of those footballs that gets passed around from developer to developer. I'd like to see it stay with one for a while - I hope Daz puts together a great version 6 (and 7, and 8...). I've got 5 Pro right now, so I won't be taking advantage of the offer, but it's nice to know version 6 is imminent.

What I would like to know is what the price of 6Pro will be to those that have 5Pro and will that price be cheeper than the Buy 5pro and get 6pro free deal. Not counting the Platclub discount.

The developers are still the same ones as before.
You mean ownership that is the one thing that keeps changing.

But yes C6 is coming soon.
it was mention at DAZ forums that it has Dynamic hair, fur, displacement modeling, NLA, DAZ Studio Content support etc.

Quote - I was a little concerned. Carrara seems to be one of those footballs that gets passed around from developer to developer. I'd like to see it stay with one for a while - I hope Daz puts together a great version 6 (and 7, and 8...). I've got 5 Pro right now, so I won't be taking advantage of the offer, but it's nice to know version 6 is imminent.

Yes. Ownership keeps changing, forcing me to re-establish my browser bookmarks. What a hassle! I first bought RayDream Designer way back in the mid-nineties, so I've been through a few iterations. I understand the need for change in a growing industry, but a little stability goes a long way as well. Anyway, I hope Daz sticks around for many years, and that they keep Carrara for a bit longer than others have.

I am using Carrara a lot lately, for 3D animation. I hope multi-pass rendering would be possible in version 6 (or via a plugin). Flexibility in post is something very nice, when on a tight scedule and clients not staying with earlier decisions... My biggest wish rignt now (because rendering takes so much time): Ambient Occlusion baking! I looked at Cinema 4D halfway, but to me Carrara still looks like the most logical app to work with (I also started with RayDream, so my vision is certainly biased). So I will stick with it as long as possible, hoping version 6 will again be a good step forward.

In the Daz forums, it was stated that it would be released before the end of the year.
So I guess we should get our Christmas wishlists ready :)

Since most of you already have Carrara, you're probably just excited that version 6 is coming.  Still, the way I read this offer, if I buy either 5 or 5 pro I get the same version 6.  There is no mention of buy 5 get 6, buy 5 pro get 6 pro, leading me to wonder if under Daz there will just be one Carrara version for everyone.  Am I reading this wrong, or maybe being too optimistic?

yaa,  had Ray dream,ray dream studio, raydream designer, Ray dream 3D(a light version)... and all the Carrara's.  I hope Daz hangs on to it also.

how many hands have been in the stew?  hmmm let's count for fun...

Ray Dream of coarse (yes the actual com[any was called Ray Dream...but, who was quickly purchased by ....

Fractal design (who had Poser, painter, Sketcher and the big photoshop plug-in what was the name?... oh ya Kia power tools, who had the bubble gum design interface and stuck it on all the products, oh ya and Bryce was thiers also. hey, one other little know fact. every one of those products started out on Apple's OS, not Microsoft.. odd huh?)

Meta Creations.

Eovia

and now Daz

any company that i missed?

pretty funny how they all bounce around... but i think Daz is pretty stable for now an should keep it for sometime

DAZ sells content.  So they'll be buying other programs in the future still.

I will have to see how well C6Pro works with P7. If they do the same kind of deal as with Bryce, I'll try it out. But didn't Daz say they won't be suporting P7? I don't use DS so I can wait as long as Daz wants to take to build thier C6.

No one knows?  Guess I'll head to the Daz forums...

Moogal -- I don't know the answer to your question at all.  I'm not too clear on how Daz works with software.  If you find anything out, please post here!

I, too, have been with this program since it's early days -- RayDream designer (and I also worked with Infini-D).  It's a great piece of software; I just wish it would get the respect it deserves.  Folks doing professional work with it are helping, but now that it's in Daz's hands, I wonder how it will continue to be received by the professional community.  Not intending a slam against Daz, but they do, for the most part, cater to hobbyists.  And while Carrara is a great hobbyist program, it's capable of so much more.

So, we'll see what happens with C6.  I'm happy with the feature set of C5P and hope that they add some more professional elements (the aforementioned AfterEffects integration with multipass rendering would be AWESOME).  Knowing that they're adding Daz Studio integration doesn't give me much hope for the more pro side of it all, though.  

 - Dex

I could've sworn I'd gotten back to this.  Yes, I did confirm that it's 5 to 6, 5 Pro to 6 Pro.  Not sure which to get, as I can't really afford either.

For Carrara 6 to be of much use to me it needs a better UV mapping editor.  The one in it now is almost useless.  I rely on UVMapper for almost everything I do in Carrara.  I recently bought Lightwave 9.2 and am transitioning to it for projects as I become more confident in it.  I also recently switched to a Macbook Pro and if I can get a UV mapper capability in Carrarra I won't need to keep a windows machine around just so I can UV map things.  They also need to fix the bug that lets it forget material and vertex names on an regular basis.

So far Carrara 6 looks like it has some nice features.  I guess we will get the details over the next few weeks with Siggraph happening next week.   

Dan

Have you tried Wings?  It's a little confusing, but it seems to work.