Quote -  Here is a render out of lightwave I did using the figure and scene I mentioned at the beginning of the post.  I made some changes and messed with the lights.  The figure I am using has a texture map, epidermal map, subdermal map, blood map, bump, spec....  The lighting in Lightwave is superior in my opinion.   With a lot more work you probably could produce similar results in Carrara.  It's a great tool (Carrara) I just hope DAZ brings it forward. 

I actually like the lighting that comes from Carrara.  To me it is just as good as Lightwave's lighting.  The main issue is that Carrara supports limited numbers of sub shaders to which you can attach maps.  You mentioned that that render required 6 maps.  You can't even really load all 6 of those maps in Carrara.  There is no such thing as epidermal, blood and subdermal maps in Carrara.  It just doesn't support that.  This is one of the main issues I've had with Poser and Daz's products.  In fact, most 3D apps don't support enough surface shader maps to render realistic looking skin.  They simply do not support enough texture maps.

Carrara does offer a mixer to add more and more things together in one sub shader.  But, adding maps together ultimately produces only one map for that sub-shader (specular, transparency, glow, etc) instead of actually producing multiple maps.  The limited nature of the number of maps leaves Carrara's results a bit flat.  Basically, Carrara needs more top level sub-shaders like epidermal, subdermal and blood maps and at least two or three specularity and bump maps to create more subtle surfaces.

Perhaps with Daz Studio Advanced, the new shader system will provide enough connectors to utilize this many maps and produce more realistic looking skin.  The problem is that Daz is so focused on Daz Studio that they're not actively improving what should be their flagship product, Carrara.  

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Brian