Hey guys, I was curious if there were any other programs like poser that are compatible with all the content available for poser?  I 've been using poser for a while and quite frankly, I hate it. I think the software is a huge pile of shit.  

Is there another program out there a bit more professional without all the problems?

Is DAZ studio any good?

there is a free version of DAZ studio, try it and see if you like it. I find it abit awkward to use personally but then I've been using Poser since version 2, so anything else would seem awkward.

If you could please identify your perception of what the problems are we may be able to give a more helpful answer.

What are you trying to use Poser for? How is it failing in allowing you to achieve your objectives?

Daz Studio, Carrara and Vue will all use poser content. They all have issues though.

What problems is Poser giving you and what version and service pack have you got. ?

Quote - Hey guys, I was curious if there were any other programs like poser that are compatible with all the content available for poser?  I 've been using poser for a while and quite frankly, I hate it. I think the software is a huge pile of shit.  

Is there another program out there a bit more professional without all the problems?

Is DAZ studio any good?

@ Zanzo

Hmmm ...

Frankly, I am curious ...
If you really feel that way*, e.g.,  (" ... huge pile of ...")* why are you even using it ? :blink:

An observation ... you have been "here" for over 2 years and, now, are just posting this question ??? Why ???

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Well, as mentioned above, there is a free version of DazStudio. Also, the paid version is far cheaper than Poser and has more functionality than the free version. Carrara is expensive, maybe prohibitively, and if you don't need to model, I wouldn't recommend it if all you want is to pose figures and set up scenes.

What version of Poser are you using? I use Poser 7 and have very few problems.

Laurie

Based on your comments, Carrara may be what you're looking for.

Klebnor

Quote - I think the software is a huge pile of shit.  

Riiiight. I'm with you. And I applaud your choice of the Poser forum to make that declaration. grin

If Poser wasn't a huge pile of shit, I'd have nothing to do for tutorials. Everyone would automatically know what to do and wouldn't be interested in what I have to say.

Also, I'd have less consulting income. Yay - pile of shit - keep it coming! More for me!

LOL @ BB

I guess that is why Maxon don't give good documentation for Bodypaint. LOL

I'm actually about to get that figured out and have decreased my swearing at it almost completely. LOL

It ran briljant om my previous PC, until the PC crashed. ATI RAGE PROII 512MB card

it ran briljant on my back up PC, ATI 512MB x7OOSE,  until that one crashed (2 days after the first one went) NO LOL at all.

Bought me a netbook, Dell 1012 Windows7 Starter pack, , 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM , Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 with 256MB Video, installed perfectly, and ran like a dream. Slower, OK, but it was workcable (HOOKED IT INTO MY BIG SCREEN)

Then the Dell got replaced with an ASUS 1001 HA, Windows XP, 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, Mobile Intel 945 Express with 224MB Video Chipset,  and again it ran great.

Now the new rig is home.
A quad 64Bit  thing, Windows Home Professional, with an ATI 1024 card and 6 GB RAM

Now it flies.

That where 4 different  installations in a weeks time.   Poser8 SR 2.1 never let me down.

Was slow on the netbooks, yeah.
I must add however, that only P8- and legacy content got installed. + some tests files.

Did not yet have the time, or the guts, to install "MY" things. 

Just go straight to porn, no messy dial spinning there.
snarf

I had an intel graphics built into my quad core duo board and had nothing but trouble out of 3D software. It was suggested to buy a Nvidia Quadro FX 580 and did so. I have not had any problems since.

Poser is far from professional.

1) It tries to communicate via winsock and it's not even going out to the internet. This is called a "hack job".  Imagine a giant bandaid over poser splash screen when you first fire it up.

2) It uses valuable CPU resources rendering the slow & clunky interface.

3) It takes a million years for objects to become visible in the library pallette.

4) Poser wasn't designed for a HUGE library, it's a mom & pop app for people who have like 5 figures and a hat.

1. There isn't a button that allows you to turn off all IK. You have to go one by one and turn them all off which takes at least 10-20 seconds.  It gets annoying after a while.

6) Models break in the arms all the frickin time and I have to do symmetry to repair the broken geometry.  I

7) Poser crashes often with heavy use. I have to save every 5 minutes to be safe.

8) The basic preview render is slow & clunky and it's difficult to move objects around.

9) Even if you turn on fast mode there is always a GIANT box in your way so you have to waste all your time finding out which object is the box to make it invisible.

Man I could go on & on ........

Poser is a perfect example of building a temple on shifting sand.  This app should of been completely re-written A LONG TIME AGO!

Instead they are piling on brick after brick on a foundation built on MUD and feces.

Welcome to poser 8:

What are your system specs? You didn't mention those. My system runs Poser 7 a bit slowly when rendering and has problems with object-intensive scenes, but then, I only have a gig of RAM. Pretty pov for 3D work.
Have you installed all updates?

I suggest you buy 3DS Max it is professional and you can brag about it. LOL.

-Poser allows for multiple runtimes, so you can split stuff up and get a faster load.
-You can put an IK_OFF script on one of the script menu bittons
-Move objets with the parameter dials , its much easier than trying to drag in the preview window.
-I run Poser 7 in fast mode with texture display and its fine for several figures and scenery. If it starts to slow I go to smooth shaded.
-Use the pulldowns to select figure or bodypart/prop/light etc.

Poser crashing is bad , and has been a problem for a long while. Save often .
If crashing is getting too persistant try deleting the libraryprefs.xml and the UI interface.xml files and let Poser recreate them. You will need to add external runtimes again.   

These are just points I have learned over several years with Poser.

And yes it is a hobby application. All the content is incredibly cheap compared to what I can buy for aLightwave or 3dsmax.  YAY poser.

I got Carrara 6 Pro for free on a magazine a while back.  Daz also  has a book on character creation that comes with it as well as Hexagon and a bunch of V4 & M4 Content for around  $25.

I should install it one of these days, but I've been too busy with Poser... :biggrin:

What magazine and issue was that WandW?

 That was 3DArtist issue 1.  Version 6.2.  I have installed it but very rarely use it

that ebook on character creation sounded interesting. I'd like to read DAZ's methods on the subject.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/training-materials/figures-characters-and?item=9166&cat=943&_m=d

actually the book isn't on character creation and isn't by DAZ, it is a guide to using DAZ studio (and is an actual book not an ebook).  But it does indeed include free versions of Carrara and Hexagon.

Wow... Someone is really hating on Poser. 

2) It uses valuable CPU resources rendering the slow & clunky interface. -  Read the system requirements to run Poser 8.  If you have more than the minimum requirements then clean the spyware and background programs that are eating your system resources.  I run Poser 8 on a computer with 2.5GB RAm that I purchased almost 10 years ago. I can render, surf the net, and chat on yahoo IM without any crashes or freezes

3) It takes a million years for objects to become visible in the library pallette. - I had this problem when the crappy adobe flash came out.  But I haven't had the problem after adobe corrected the issue. It wasn't a Poser issue.

4) Poser wasn't designed for a HUGE library, it's a mom & pop app for people who have like 5 figures and a hat.  As for the HUGE Library -  Everything has to be done within reason. If you have a HUGE library then you may be overworking your system which means you need to upgrade your system to handle he extra load. The more powerful you computer is the better Pose will run.  Once again not a Poser Problem.

1. There isn't a button that allows you to turn off all IK. You have to go one by one and turn them all off which takes at least 10-20 seconds.  It gets annoying after a while. - This is a very minor and borders on laziness since there are only 4 IK options. 2 hands 2 legs.  It would be like complaining that my toilet doesn't flush by itself or that the doors on my house are automatic doors.  Out of everything that could be wrong, this one is very low on the scale and has no effect on the way your render looks or the speed at which Poser Renders 3D content.

6) Models break in the arms all the frickin time and I have to do symmetry to repair the broken geometry.  I have never had any of these problems with Poser 5,6,7,pro, nor 8.  Sounds like an installation issue.  Maybe file corruption, but once again that's a computer issue and not a Poser issue.

7) Poser crashes often with heavy use. I have to save every 5 minutes to be safe.  What do you consider heavy use?  Maybe your computer can't handle heavy use?  The last time I checked, "Save Often" is the unwritten rule of the computer no matter what program you are working with. 

8) The basic preview render is slow & clunky and it's difficult to move objects around.  The lowest render setting for me finishes in less than a minute. 

9) Even if you turn on fast mode there is always a GIANT box in your way so you have to waste all your time finding out which object is the box to make it invisible.  I don't know of this GIANT Box you speak off unless you have the options at the bottom where you can see a wire version or a block version.  if that's the case then just change the settings so you can see what you are doing.

Instead of complaining try asking for help.

Although I suspect you’ve heard it all before, the alternatives to Poser are Daz Studio, Carrara, Cinema 4D (with the Poser plugin) and Vue.

Daz Studio is not as confusing as people let on here. It is far easier to set up large scenes with its interface, the library is fast and doesn’t require any weird loop to IE and you get a 64 bit version for free if you buy the pro version. The drawbacks are that there is no IK, no dynamic cloth except some pre-made costumes sold separately, no hair module either.

Carrara doesn’t load a Poser scene reliably, but it can handle Poser content. I don’t like the interface, but that’s just me. (Maybe I’m weird for wishing that you could set a morph by dragging on a dial instead of typing in a value.) It has IK, hair, superior animation tools, but no cloth. The renderer should be capable of doing better than most of the renders I see posted. I’m not sure what the problem is with Carrara renders.

Cinema 4D is reputed to be solid. It’s pretty expensive. You’d have to buy the Poser plugin separately. (I think it’s called Interposer.) Last I heard, you couldn’t use IK with Poser content in Cinema 4D, but maybe it has been added to Interposer by now. Obviously, Cinema 4D has a professional renderer, and there is a cloth and a hair module. (Those might cost extra and I’m not sure how well they would integrate with the Poser content.)

Vue just lets you import Poser scenes. You won’t be able to manipulate the figures much within Vue. (Despite the hype, the ability to manipulate Poser figures in Vue is poorly implemented and ridiculously dysfunctional.) If you computer is choking on Poser 8 Runtimes, it probably wouldn’t handle Vue well at all. I find the Poser 8 libraries to be pretty quick most of the time, despite a ton of content, but my computer is fairly capable. 

I would pretty much echo what Paloth said with a couple of minor exceptions.

It appears to me that you do have sliders for controlling morphs in Carrara (6 Pro at least). Translations like rotate are numeric. You can get sliders for XYZ translation of the figure under constraints which also reveals a whole slew of translation options I've just this minute discovered :-) I agree that not having graphical controls for rotation is a pain. Another issue is that Carrara doesn't, as far as I can see, doesn't support Poser's cameras - no problem unless you have a bunch of MAT pz2s saved as cm2s. I agree that the renderer seems to be somehow under-perfoming but I ascribe that to my use of the 'make art' button or my subjective tastes, I don't know.

I don't have the hardware to even try posing inside Vue, where AFAIK, you're essentially running Poser in the background - a daunting task for even a high end computer. Vue itself wants a powerful system but just importing and rendering Poser content works, albeit at a glacial pace, on even a truly ancient rig (Vue 6 at least). I've seen a fair number of complaints about it's stability, but personally, I haven't seen anything that can't be explained by my underpowered hardware Moral, Pose in Poser, render in Vue.

In fact, I don't think I'd use any of the 'alternatives' by itself without a copy of Poser. If you have access to an older version that runs better on your system, use that in conjunction with one of the others. If you haven't used Poser for very long, you may find that Daz Studio is suitable as a complete replacement but I think that many people find that there are things that Poser does better or faster or more easily and use each application for its strengths.

Quote - @ Zanzo ... An observation ... you have been "here" for over 2 years and, now, are just posting this question ???  Why ??? ...

At the risk of repeating myself again ...

2 years seems like an awfully long time to formulate an opion such as the one that has been expressed.

Hey guys, ......Is is at all possible that we have had our proverbial chain yanked? :blink:

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Quote - > Quote - that ebook on character creation sounded interesting. I'd like to read DAZ's methods on the subject.

actually the book isn't on character creation and isn't by DAZ, it is a guide to using DAZ studio (and is an actual book not an ebook).  But it does indeed include free versions of Carrara and Hexagon.

Thanks Dupre

Quote - > Quote - @ Zanzo ... An observation ... you have been "here" for over 2 years and, now, are just posting this question ???  Why ??? ...

At the risk of repeating myself again ...

2 years seems like an awfully long time to formulate an opion such as the one that has been expressed.

Hey guys, ......Is is at all possible that we have had our proverbial chain yanked? :blink:

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Or someone just blowing off some steam.

Yup ...........  'tis possible. :lol: ... BUT ............. 2 YEARS ???

When I first started with Poser6 and at times since I have been very frustrated to the point of getting angry with Poser and wanting to wipe it off my hard drives....Part of the problem is or was the software, and part of the problem was the guy holding the mouse in his hand and not totally understanding what he was doing at the time. Back when I started, part of my frustration was, how come in a few clicks, using purchased characters, props, poses and lights wasn't my renders looking like some of the amazing stuff people are creating? And thanks to PhilC I now even have a much needed Make Art button! :laugh:

I recently developed a new appreciation for the dedication of the people working on Poser to try to make it better. How many of you worked on Super Bowl Sunday? Super Bowl Sunday is like a national holiday here in the States. Everything stops while it is being played including crime. Yeah somebody has to work at the local 7-11 on Super Bowl Sunday to sell the beer and chips....but a software developer? If you think they don't care, and are not working long and hard on Poser, you are dead wrong. I almost want to tell the people working on Poser they need to get a life.  :ohmy:

Poser is not designed or priced to be a 3d Max or C4D. There are a zillion variations of hardware, software that user's have installed that make replicating various problems (so they can be fixed) by the developers difficult to say the least. If you expect the performance of 3DMax or C4D, are you willing to pay that kind of price for Poser?

Has anyone said anything about Z Brush yet. Its a great prgram,
costs a ton, but its super. Truth is poser is just for fun. I've had
my problems with every poser I've bought,4-8, but it's still just a
toy to me. I'll never be one of them pro's cause fantasy is a lot
more fun to me. Real life ain't exact, never will be!

Zbrush is very reasonable compared to C4D or 3DS Max or Maya. I use it.

Zbrush is great, but it doesn't do the same thing as Poser. That's like comparing apples and orangutans.

"It appears to me that you do have sliders for controlling morphs in Carrara (6 Pro at least)."

Yes there is. Unfortunately you can only drag them until they slide to the end of the slider. In my experience, the range only covers about 1% of the actual morph. 

Hm, all your listed nasty little offenses are ... correct ... thankfully not all at the same time but time by time the one or other ...
So like BB also mentioned a pile of .... and he should know it cause being involved in that "hack job" ... :blushing:

But on the other hand all these rants are also completely true for MS Windows and/or MS Office besides that these aren't able to do 3D-stuff ... :lol:

So that's nothing new and is the charme of Poser ... one have to love or to hate that piece of stuff ...

But to your image analogy for Poser 8 ...

Do you know how long this building is standing safely in this position and how good the prognosis is that it will do this for the next centuries ... ok, ok, time by time they have to mix a little bit concrete to fasten the stand ... but that SM team is also needing to do something for there money ... so let's wait for the next portion of concrete ... :laugh:

 I have suggested in other threads that Poser should have a basic program for $1,000.00
With expansion modules priced from $500.00 to $750.00

With all of this extra cash flow going into R & D....   Poser would soon become the software package that would eclipse anything else out there..

Or alternately,     change the minimum system requirements so people are not expecting Lamborghini performance at Toyota pricing.....!

Quote - I got Carrara 6 Pro for free on a magazine a while back.  Daz also  has a book on character creation that comes with it as well as Hexagon and a bunch of V4 & M4 Content for around  $25.

I should install it one of these days, but I've been too busy with Poser... :biggrin:

That's what I thought... until I actually started using Carrara 6 Pro. Now, I don't think I'll do any rendering with Poser, at least not animations. Carrara 6 pro BLOWS PoserPro away with render speed. A scene in Poser that takes an hour or so to render renders in minutes in Carrara 6 and looks so much better to me. Daz even has a tutorial for moving dynamic cloth from poser to Studio (which also works in Carrara) which is about the only thing I was going to render in Poser. I still plan to do all my character animation in Poser and import it into C6 to render. And there is so much more you can do in C6 than Poser. Ever try to make a forest of dynamic trees on a field of dynamic grass in Poser? No problem in C6. I'm wishing I had made the switch a long time ago.

*"Yes there is. Unfortunately you can only drag them until they slide to the end of the slider. In my experience, the range only covers about 1% of the actual morph" *

Yes, I see. I did find a tip in the Carrara forum - holding down Alt while in one of the numeric translation fields does bring up a tiny dial but it doesn't work for morphs unfortunately.. Still, I discover some new function every time I open C6P - definitely a very versatile application especially for free :-)

From my very limited use, the landscapes and overall render quality aren't as good as Vue, the modeler probably isn't as powerful as C4D, the posing isn't as easy as Poser etc. but for what you get, a platform that can do almost everything quite well in an integrated package, I'm quite impressed. OTOH, it does show the wisdom of sticking to one or two key functions and doing them really well.

Quote - Carrara doesn’t load a Poser scene reliably, but it can handle Poser content. I don’t like the interface, but that’s just me. (Maybe I’m weird for wishing that you could set a morph by dragging on a dial instead of typing in a value.) It has IK, hair, superior animation tools, but no cloth. The renderer should be capable of doing better than most of the renders I see posted. I’m not sure what the problem is with Carrara renders.

I suggest you try a recent version of Carrara.  Please advise a Poser scene that C7Pro doesn't import reliably, as I've never seen one.  You can either type in a morph value (as you suggest), or use the up down slider at the right end of the morph box.  No cloth simulation yet - that's true.  What about the real lights, including HDRI, indirect, full (real) ambient occlusion, ability to light (or not light) any object or objects, anything glows, shape lights.  Fire primitives - incredibly real fires and flames that can be animated.  Ocean primitives with waves, wind direction for animation.  Oh, yeah, and it has a rather complete terrain modeling capability as well as object modeling and painting built in.  And a real hierarchic shader tree with terrain shaders as well as infinitely modifiable object shaders.  Oh, yeah, and VSS.  One more point - the render engine is to Poser's as a Lamborghini is to an old mule.  The interface for posing requires learning, but is much more functional and accurate once the technique is acquired.  Carrara interfaces directly with poser runtimes to display and import any Poser content.  Shaders must often be corrected following import, but that's true between any two 3d programs.

Klebnor

Poser and I have never really hit it off, but it is what it is, and there really isn't anything out there that can replace it. Professional?! If you're a professional, you model your own characters, or have staff that does it for you. Poser is designed for people who can not, or do not have the resources to model a character or rig it.

Poser, like every other platform out there, can get a bit dodgier with every release, simply because new code is written, and integrated with the original. How bad it gets depends on the talent of the coders, and how strenuous the testing is. A perfect example is Cinema 4D. In R6, you couldn't crash it with a big stick. In R10, it does take a big stick, but it will go down. Personally, I think P7 was very well done, and had no more issues that P5. And P7 had some  very well thought out improvements to the render engine.

As far as render engines go, everyone has their favorite, because interfaces vary so widely. You have to find one that clicks with you. VRay is like an old comfy pair of shoes for me. Other people find it illogical. I've seen Bryce 5 renders that will blow your socks off, because the artist knew his render engine and how to stretch it.

So, I'll have to disagree. Poser is for people who want to create characters, find facial features very important, but couldn't model one from scratch unless given a full year and some intense rigging training. Poser does a good job in what it's intended to do.

hmm... I've had P7 running (sometime minimized) for 3 days now, and it hasn't even thought about crashing. Yeah, I get distracted easily.

I've often had P7 going for weeks on end rendering out animations with few crashes.

Yep, same here. I'll have Poser 7 running for more than a week sometimes ;o).

Laurie

Probably because I'm an old hot-rodder, I tend to push Poser to the limit, making complex scenes using a lot of SFX, and rendering at large pixel dimensions.  Whereas P6 and P7 would crash if pushed over the edge, I have noticed that now Poser slows down, but never crashes.  I don't know what has been improved about the memory management, but something has been improved.  Galadriel has 12Gb of RAM and I have repeatedly pushed Poser to the point where total sytem usage tops 12,000Mb, but instead of crashing, now Poser seems to approach the memory limit asymptotically, i.e., it nudges up close to the without ever overstepping the limit. 

Overnight renders of wallpapers are common;  rendering a series of PNGs for a forty second video clip might be 4-5 days running three or four computers simultaneously.  I've never had an issue with Poser (6, 7, Pro, 8) being open for a long time.

Right now Galadriel is doing a test render of a (new freebie! ^^) elven boat with an experimental wake.  She has everything I could think of engaged - IDL, quadratic falloff detail lights, gamma correction, ray-traced shadows, AO on select parts with invaginations, reflection, translucence, refraction, and lots of displacement.  Might be done about sundown.

I love to push a program like poser to it's limits, make it fail and break.

then I know thats the point I stop. anything within that limit, I know I can do.

for example, I once loaded every bazze aircraft in to one scene and rendered. slow yes.. but it handled them ok....

Turn off all your IK.

import poser

scene = poser.Scene()

def run():
    if not scene.CurrentFigure():
        return
    fig = scene.CurrentFigure()
    if fig.NumIkChains():
        iklist = []
        for i in range(fig.NumIkChains()): # Turn off IK and store the settings           
            fig.SetIkStatus(i,0)
    scene.DrawAll()
run()

Poser could use some improving, in places where that somehow never seems to happen.  Largely, though, it's more good than bad, once you get to know it.  Getting to know it is the tricky part, but also much easier than my experiences in trying to learn Modo or Blender.

*steals Cages Ik script cause its nicer than mine :)

Quote - *steals Cages Ik script cause its nicer than mine :)

Actually, mine has an oopsie.  The iklist = [] line does nothing and shouldn't be there.  It was a holdover from a function which memorized the IK to restore it.    But: steal away.  :D

* I suggest you try a recent version of Carrara.*

I have the recent "Pro" version.

*Please advise a Poser scene that C7Pro doesn't import reliably, as I've never seen one. *

It's pretty common in my experience to have figures that were posed import in C7Pro in the default T position. Sometimes props are removed or don't show up at all. Maybe I don't have the latest service release, but this problem made the jump from C6 to C7 and was acknowledged by many. 

You can either type in a morph value (as you suggest), or use the up down slider at the right end of the morph box.

 Yes, but a slider is not a dial. You can only slide to the end. This means that some morphs, as well as easy pose parameters, cannot be manipulated by sliders since you need greater values than what the slider allows to see the change. It is probably possible to reset a slider's range, but the fact that you may have to makes typing the values an easier option.  

 Of course, Carrara is inferior to even Daz Studio when it comes to interpreting some ERC chains. Chains that curve perfectly in Poser and Daz studio will be segmented in Carrara. This is not a problem that Daz is willing to fix or even acknowledge. 

One more point - the render engine is to Poser's as a Lamborghini is to an old mule.

   Poser 8 rendering has greatly improved now that there is a form of GI. I wouldn't doubt that Carrara has a better renderer, although it isn't apparent in most of the Carrara renders I've seen. 

That being said, I'm beginning to come around to the original poser's point of view now that Poser 8 has died on me. Getting rid of the configuration files didn't help and a reinstall didn't fix it. 

I think making Poser rely on Microsoft IE for functionality was the only way to make it more unstable than it already was. 

I reinstalled IE and flash and now everything is working again. Fun fun fun... 

IMHO, both Carrara and DAZ Studio (DS) are very good alternatives to Poser. Each program has it's strengths and weaknesses. It really just depends on what you want to do (I have all three).

I didn't use DS much other than to just play with it until 3 came out. I got DS 3 Advanced because it had the 64bit option. I'm quite glad I did. It's very responsive, much faster rendering than  before, and has some nice features like the Morph Follower and UberEnvironment lighting. I'm not a lighting expert in DS, but I think this image came out pretty good using UberEnvironment (also used morph follower):
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1994089

I've had Carrara since version 2, and really do like it. Version 8 will be fully 64bit. I'm playing with the 64bit Beta now, and it's great! It allows you to do things that are very difficult, or impossible in 32bit. There are occasional problems with Poser content in Carrara (and DS), but for the most part everything works very well. Carrara gives you a lot more room to grow than either Poser or DS, and has a faster render engine. My render preference is Carrara first, then DS3A, then Poser. Poser is quite capable of doing top notch renders, but I've never been able to get good lighting as easily as I can with Carrara.

Materials usually need to be tweaked in Carrara or DS, unless the item has Carrara or DS specific shaders. It's a fairly simple process though, and you can get some very nice results. The materials for the car in the image at the link below were done with stock Carrara shaders with some minor changes, to replace the Poser shaders that looked very unrealistic in Carrara.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2009629

Carrara does landscapes, quite well, but possibly not as well as Vue (don't have Vue to compare). this link below will give you an idea regarding what Carrara can do with "small scale" landscapes.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1832144

Like others have said, give both DS and Carrara a test drive. Often with 3D software what "feels" right is the best tool to use, because you will enjoy using it!

Good Luck!
DR

Those are very cool DustRider. I especially like the car paint. I've only seen the stock landscape scenes that came with Carrara 6 Pro. The one you showed is really quite nice. I suspect Vue may have a slight edge depending but it was designed from the ground up to do landscapes and atmospheres.

I like using HDRI lighting in Vue and I'm experimenting with it in C6P following a tutorial I found. I have DS3 standard but I haven't installed it. So far, to my eye, the Vue renders are the nicest but playing with using PoseRay to export scenes to Kerkythea and using HDRI there looks promising as well. As you say, all of them can produce excellent results, it's a matter of what comes easiest.

lmckenzie-Thanks!

Even though I don't have Vue, I think you're right about it having an edge with landscapes. It looks like C8 should catch up to Vue a little more. Being 64bit will give it more working space, which seems to have been a huge improvement with Vue. It also has "gods rays" in version 8, and some other improvements to volumetric lighting. Vue does create some awsome renders! They have a softer look and feel.

I love HDRI !!!  It's one of the reasons I like using Carrara so much. it makes lighting so much easier. The link below is to the first image I did with HDRI in Carrara (way back at version 4), it got me hooked on HDRI (this was also my first post to my gallery on Rendo).
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=887298

Coming "soon" (hopefully not DAZ soon) to C8 will be dynamic softbodies/cloth and better physiscs. With that, Carrara will be a very complete 3D application. With 64Bit and Dynamic cloth I'll be very happy with C8.