Hi Folks! Thanks, ddmwn and MartinC, for posting the information about Carrara Studio. I just visited Eviaos web site and went thru the product tour. Looks pretty impressive. As a user of both Ray Dream Studio and Infini-D, Ive always felt more comfortable and in control of my 3D projects when Ive used Infini-D. I still use Infini-D for creating models that ultimately become .obj models in Poser and Bryce. My concern is that while the new Carrara looks very attractive, it seems to have been built more from the elements of RDS than from Infini-D. Does anyone here think that Carrara Studio is an innovative and user-friendly application built from both of its two predecessors, or is it simply RDS 7.0? The upgrade price is reasonable. What do yall think? Should I take the plunge? Peter (Dr Zik)

Peter, I'm not sure any of the Carrara Studio product has shipped yet. It was a fairly recent announcement. You might check over on the Carrara forum to see if anyone has received the new software yet. I did go ahead and order it, as I already have Carrara, so it seemed like a safe gamble. I only ordered it last week, so I haven't seen it yet. We may have to wait a bit before we can hear some feedback! Sorry I can't give you a more definite response.

twillis, why did you order a copy if you already have the old cararra. You can download a free upgrade from metacreations to eovia studio on thier website. Am I missing something? Will the retail version be more complete?

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A fair question, Nnplus. Well, the studio version includes Amapi 3D v.5, which has Nurbs (something that I want to learn about). It also includes several third-party plug-ins that I think will come in handy. However, I'm sure many Carrara 1 users will be happy with just the Carrara 1.1 patch. For more info, see that attached link. --Terri

What sucks is if I hadn't bought the plugins that come free with the new version I would be able to upgrade. I'm glad for the people that are getting them free, just hate buying stuff and finding out the new version has incorporated them. Like Cinema 4D XL and the bhodinut filters. Version 7.0 incorporated the filters that I already paid over a hundered dollars for. 8^| Marque

how much does the software cost? and are u a student if so you can get 3D Studio Max Educational which is a full copy of max for around 900 bucks and it includes nurbs, nurms, splines, box modeling, patches. and a host of other 3D modeling tools. Cheers sid

Dr. Zik, I've begun experimenting with Poser more seriously lately and just got the RDS--> Carrara Studio upgrade and started playing with that. Earlier today I exported a Vicki II figure with Figure clothing all texture mapped - all the maps came through fine, without trasparency. The immediate odd thing that I found was a similar problem to Bryce imports, which is problems with the eyes. They do not map properly initially in either program, but while I can solve the problem in Bryce I haven't been able to in Carrara. The REye and LEye objects seem to be made of subobjects (eyeball, iris, pupil, eyewhite - as per the Poser Material assignments) and these all automatically get their own shaders when imported. The eye, however, remains opaque no matter what I do... Still working on it, however. Initial test renders, with nothing done except importing and default render setting looked good, if not a little satin. I have not yet started playing with OBJ imports specifically... Tom D

Hi, all I recently imported some poser characters into Bryce and I found that apparently the is an "outer shell "on the vicky and micheal figures eyes that give them their shine in poser this geometry needs to be deleted after import into another program and will will reveal the eye with its iris and pupil. Mocap

Hi Mocap, In response to your "outer shell" problem, have you tried increasing the transparency of the Eyeball surface material to 98-100% instead of deleting the geometry? I don't have Bryce, but I use LightWave and Max and that seems to work when using the DAZ Vic and Mic figures. Just a suggestion... Default Guy

Thanks I will that a try!! Mocap

Yes, setting that outer shell as transparent is the trick in Bryce, you can also play with its specularity and such... Not so easy (yet) in Carrara....will try more tonight. :-) Tom D

Yup, make the eyeball material transparent, maybe with a bit of reflection and specular highlights to make it look more like a real eye. Works wonders in Cinema 4D. That little thing had me stumped good for a while before I figured out what was going on.

Well, work continues - there seem to be a couple of issues going on that are making things screwy...you can see the current state of things from the attached image. More soon.... (I can give specifics if people care enough, let me know...) Tom D