Because its renders require lots of postwork in Photoshop.  I kid.

They just need to get better marketing and more "me too" stuff.  I'm not sure where you saw an amazing gallery for it.

Have you looked at the FREE Kerkythea renderer?

Have a look at Strata in the way of a comparrison chart of what it does compared to  the Carrara version.
Analyse the Strata costs for the extras/plugins etc. Then also, compare how easy it is to use and what story you can get from forums on it's tendency to crash etc.
How good is it to use/understand from the trial version?

Modo is for now the best solution for rendering quality/speed. And in my opinion Carrara is much better than Strata in many aspects.

-TOXE

bwtr,

Kerkythea seems very nice! Thanks for the info:-)

-TOXE

At last, something I can respond to with authority. I just switched from Strata to Carrara at the end of December.  Strata was my first 3D program and my primary work-horse for the last 9 years.

You are correct that Strata's renderer is tough to beat. Strata can create beautiful shadows, reflections and transparency, but it takes a long... looonngggg time to render. Which means it is limited to stills for the most part.  It has some rudimentary animation capabilities, but with no function curve editor and a recently rebuilt, but still quirky, bones system it's not much of an animation package beyond simple camera fly-throughs.

They also recently added subdiv surface modeling so that may be equal to Cararra--I haven't used either much since before Strata added the subdiv modeler anything complex you wanted to build in it had to be "skinned" (called lofting in other 3D programs) which was very limiting so I purchased Silo as my main modeler.

One of the biggest differences I've found (unexpectedly) is the flexibility of Carrara's shaders (texture room).  Strata focuses primarily on image based texture maps. The few shaders they have are pre-programmed and only modifiable by predefined settings within the shader's interface.  In other words you can't mix and match shader attributes like noise or turbulence on a per channel basis but only as an overall texture to be applied to your object as a whole.

Then there is the small matter of price.  Base price puts Carrara at half the cost of Strata.  But more importantly the last update to Strata only added the ability to interact with Photoshop (like Daz does with 3D Bridge) for a cost of $150.  That was about the same price that Carrara was on sale for this December.  So I could pay for yet another "upgrade" to Strata like I have paid for over and over again for marginal improvements OR I could pay the same amount for another 3D package with a lot more features.

By the way, the image you chose is by "Nathan Koga" he does some incredible stuff with Strata but it's hard to tell how much of his images are made in post production.  I've asked him myself, but never got an answer.  Just keep in mind people like him tend to get results like that from whatever 3D program they are using--they keep at it until it looks the way the want it to--Software be damned.

For a feature comparison, outside of rendering (raydiosity) I can't thing of any features Strata has that Carrara doesn't.  But Carrara has: physics, morph targets, f-curves, channel based shaders, terrain generator, surface replication, tree generator, realistic sky and clouds, sub-surface light scattering, translucency, interactive hair/fur, and a lot more I can't think of or haven't discovered yet that Strata is missing.  There is a positive side to not having all those features too.  Strata's interface is really clean and easy to work with.

So I hope all that helps, in the end if you can afford $700 for a great stills renderer Strata might be worth it.  Lord know I keep using it for that purpose and probably will be for a while yet. But if you're into animation or do a lot of outdoor and terrain renderings you're going to find Strata pretty useless.

You can check out my Strata gallery here if you like:
http://www.stratacafe.com/member.asp?ID=6592

Actually, bwtr brings up a good point.  After looking around at various 3D programs I'm almost convinced I might have been better off just committing to learning Blender.  It's amazing how good some of the Open Source Software is getting. If Blender didn't have such a strange default interface and behavior I bet it would be a lot more popular than it already is.

Dwarg....Thanks for your input. The strata stills are so realistic it's hard not to immediatly jump on board. Is strata 3d cx5.5 any better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What do u think about cinema 4d ?????????

Cinema4D is used for moives.  So it's probably pretty good if you are wanting more than a hobby thing.

Shonner is right, you need to find your target market first: movies, games, tv shows or just for fun? Before this you will need to watch yor wallet... how much you want to spend?
Here a know selection:

Movies: Maya, XSI, Lightwave, Cinema 4D

Games: 3DMax, SXI

TV Shows: Lightwave

If you want to be a real Pro you will need to choose what your market use not what you want to use. Choose a studio that do what you like and ask for what software they use, this is the right way.

About reallity, well here we get a very large discusion... its very dificult to find someone that do a render without postwork to get a "real" scene. So I saw many guys doing realistic scenes in many softwares, so the problem is the user here, not the application... but with a 3D software with limitations like Dwarg talked about I think is better to think about what to use. Talk to more people, look galleries in the internet (outside the software makers site! there will be only the best) and take you decision.

I could only find one image in their strata3d gallery here (retouched in photoshop)
their search function returned no images in their strata3d archives here, but
I think it's probly snafu, as there's no way strata3d could be that bad.  I recall
using it in the 90s, and it was agt least as good as ray dream or whatever.

I'm glad the feedback was helpful Magus.  I really like C4D also. All around I would call it a much better 3D package for a price similar to Strata, but in order to get it to render stills as good as Strata you're going to need the Advance Render Module which adds at least another $600 to the package. So I find Maxon's tiered pricing kind of deceptive. The company I worked for previously switched from Strata to C4D at my recommendation, but I couldn't afford it so I chose Carrara for myself after I left the company.

Just keep in mind, it's not the software but the artist that determines the quality of the work.  If you have an area you would like to focus on you can find some packages more specialized for those things, but in the end it's up to the guy pushing the pencil... or... the mouse in this case.

Miss Nancy, if you want to see Strata Images the best place to go is the Strata Cafe here:
http://www.stratacafe.com/gallery.asp

Chris Tyler is the resident render master, his gallery is here:
http://www.stratacafe.com/member.asp?ID=1249

John Hunter Barrie also does amazing spaceships:
http://www.stratacafe.com/member.asp?ID=2579

Mike Hopkins uses both Carrara and Strata I think:
http://www.stratacafe.com/member.asp?ID=7607

Dale Schulz - Does all his modeling in Silo, rendering in Strata:
http://www.stratacafe.com/member.asp?ID=229

Most of the good models you see there were either done in Silo, Wings or Blender then imported into Strata for render.

I still think Bryce 5.5 can render just as well as, if not better than, Strata.  And I think Bryce 5.5 is still free.

But Carrara renders much better than both.

o.k., then - for spaceships, strata may be good, but carrara may well handle figure posing better.

Quote - o.k., then - for spaceships, strata may be good, but carrara may well handle figure posing better.

Without a doubt.  :-)

Quote - I still think Bryce 5.5 can render just as well as, if not better than, Strata.  And I think Bryce 5.5 is still free.

You know I have to say I am often surprised by the high quality of renders I see coming out of Bryce.  But I think it comes down to one's willingness to put up with the Bryce interface long enough to set up a good render that really holds it back, secondly I just don't think it has the versatility and different rendering options of most 3D programs.  But again it all comes down to the artist.  If a good artist wants to create a great image and is willing to put in the time they can do it with PC paint.

Quote - But Carrara renders much better than both.

It's all subjective so it's hard to definitively say what renders best.  I can say Carrara renders many times faster, and I can say Carrara has a very nice renderer. I can even say Carrara probably does a better job rendering landscapes.  But I'm a long way from agreeing that it's a better renderer overall. Especially in terms of quality or accuracy of shadows, reflections (blurred) and refraction.  There is a cost to that accuracy to be sure.  I can set Carrara's setting as high as they go to get close.  But full raytracing and/or raydiosity for every object and pixel is going to have its advantages at the cost of speed.

I haven't seen anything rendered in Carrara that compares to the studio lighting setups by Chris Tyler in Strata.  Then again I'm new here so if you wanted to point me to some high-quality renderings, in that vein, done in Carrara I'd love to see them.  I'd love nothing more than to be able to drop Strata entirely and make Carrara my full-time program.

I think Carrara is a great program and will always be in my tool box, the render engine I think is nice but not super compaired to Lightwave, 3D Studio, Cinema 4D .......

I used Strata several years ago and really like the versitility of the app but found to many limitations.

What I like about Carrara is the amount of tools you get for the price and ease of use, what I don't like is the room style interface I would perfer to have one main screen or maybe two (Model side and Animation side).

My work flow includes

Modo 301 for modeling, uv maps and texturing
Carrara for test renders sometime final renders and play time :)
Lightwave for final renders and animation.

Dwarg
I agree about the whole Blender thing, if it wasn't for the interface there would be no question.

I'm not sure where you are at when it comes to 3D but price per feature Carrara is an ok option easy to get into ot has lots of pre made content and a great manual.

However there are lots of options at that price point.
-Soft|image
-Cinema 4D 10.5 Base
-TrueSpace 7.x
-Hash Animation Master

Quote - I haven't seen anything rendered in Carrara that compares to the studio lighting setups by Chris Tyler in Strata.  Then again I'm new here so if you wanted to point me to some high-quality renderings, in that vein, done in Carrara I'd love to see them.  I'd love nothing more than to be able to drop Strata entirely and make Carrara my full-time program.

http://www.shonner.com/drafts/indoor_rendering.htm
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/hexagon_grand_confort_chair.htm
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/images/compare.jpg
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/images/rejuv_chamber_1.jpg
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/raygun.htm
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/fishtank.htm
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/realistic_carrara_renders.htm
http://www.shonner.com/drafts/hdri_with_dof.htm (nudity)
http://www.shonner.com/ta/commander_wip.htm
http://celmar.cgsociety.org/gallery/159273/

http://tutengraphics.com/tblib.php?cat=Computer+Artwork

A thread from Daz at http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=64779&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

http://www.shonner.com/drafts/images/athena_boob_skin_test_20.jpg

A timely (for me!) thread. I was considering Strata, but now I think I"m convinced to stay with Carrara.  Thanks all!