I finally had a few hours to tool around with the "new" Carrara. Unfortunately, I wasn't very impressed. Sure the bugs are gone and they finally fixed the zoom tool in the vertex modeler (one of the worst things!) but lets face it Carrara is an ultra weak modeler! You can get free software that has better modeling tools. How about a simple bevel! or maybe a meshsmooth function! Hey I have an idea - the ability to load an image into the background! I haven't shelled out the $ for the "Studio" version - so I've only been able to try out Amapi 4.x and I've never liked it! Any thoughts? What does everyone use to suppliment Carrara?

For modeling purposes, I went over to Rhinoceros several years ago and never looked back. While I am sure that Amapi has many virtues, I am more inclined towards Rhino's tools and interface as I have yet to find anything that I have wished to model which Rhino cannot handle.

In the Vertex Modeler the is a meshsmooth fubnktion, but here it's called subdivide surface. In there you have to selekt the part of you model (or the full model) and go to Selection >> Subdivide Surface do this on or two time and your finish try it geek

I started using Amapi 5 a while back and after getting past the very different interface, I've discovered an extremely powerful tool that works beautifully with both Carrara and RDS. For the past 2 years I've also worked in Lightwave and found that a lot of Amapi's features are implemented better. I am very big on applications not just having great features but more importantly being both intuitive and interactive. Here's an example: In both Carrara's vertex modeler and Lightwave 5.6 you extrude a polygon by first selecting it then by punching in numerically the amount of extrusion. In Amapi, you can also pull the polygon out interactively. This may be a small thing but Amapi sports little touches like this throughout it's interface.

Unfortunately, subdivide and meshsmooth are not the same thing :(

The only thing I use to supplement Carrara for my models would be PhotoShop or PhotoPaint for some of the image maps I use.

As subdivide and meshsmooth are not the same, I was thinking maybe the Surface Fidelity option is what you might find as a meshsmooth equivalent. I usually up my surface fidelity to 300% from the default 100%. This is done in the modeller room.

Attached Link: http://creafab.free.fr

I don't use Carrara, but I don't think the smooh functions have changed since RayDream. Indeed, there is a smooth function in the mesh form modeler, but now, when I have to make a chamferred object, I use Amapi3D 4.15. The modeling functions are much more powerful in Amapi. On the contrary, the Free Form Modeler is easier to use than the Amapi's.

hi- ok, carrara is a weak modeler. how is it at animating and rendering? i'm considering buy it, as eovia has an upgrade program from amapi. i bought lightwave 6.5 recently. talk about weak! it's completely unusable! all i want is a stable modeler/renderer to use on a mac to produce some animations to print to video. anyone have some suggestions? all opinions are of interest. thanx

I use Carrara and Amapi to produce stills for a newspaper, so I can't speak about animation. I don't think that the learning curve on Carrara is as steep as Lightwave (I've used Lightwave 5.6 for a little over a year) but if you're new to 3D then I think all of them (3D applications) are a little difficult. When you talk about Lightwave being weak, what are you speaking about specifically? I know it to be very un-Maclike but the feature set is extremely capable. There is a pretty good reason that it costs 8 times what Carrara does and I think that that a large part of it is due to it's animation capabilities. On the other hand Carrara is geared a bit more to making still pictures and creating certian shapes is much easier and quicker than in Lightwave. What Carrara can't model, I've found that I can usually get done in Amapi. Another option is to check out DVgarage.com and see what they have to offer with the 3D toolkit

hi- thanks, robertzavala, for responding. by weak, i mean even the simplest tools won't function, ie: the bevel;the knife: it can freeze or crash when calling up the numeric pad; the numeric pad has no effect on the move tool and must be done manually; object files become locked and unchangable- even copies of the files; sometimes the interface draws in such a way as to make it unusable. in other words, i haven't been able to compomplete a single model, let alone place it in a scene. also, it doesn't have a chamfer tool, which i can't live without. the particles, physics, and vertex maps all sound great, and are the reasons i bought it, but i doubt i'll ever use them. the 6.5b upgrade is even worse and i've had to deinstall it. it installed some ati extensions that screwed up my system's screen drawing, and i'm still trouble shooting that. tho they say it works on some macs (SOME macs???)they're not yet forthcoming about the necessary system configuration. but they promise to exchange my mac dongle for a pc dongle for free, now i just have to find out the best pc configuration to run it. i hear dual athelons are the best. it's the rendering i was attracted to. i hear it's up to 70% faster on a pc than mac, tho. just proves you need to do your research... i prefer amapi's modeler interface, btw- closer to using real world tools, which is my background. thanx, and keep those opinions coming, folks!