I just learned that the latest issue (#17) of 3D Artist comes with a free version of Carrara 7 Pro on the disc.

Does anyone know how well this version gets along with PP 2010?

You don't have to use them at the same time. You can save a scene in Poser as a *.pz3 file, however if you import that into Carrara it needs much time and some poses are not looking the way as they do in Poser.

Much easier is it to use just your Poser runtime in Carrara where you will find it under 'Content' if you add the runtime in the data menü. This way you can set up your Carrara scene with you Poser stuff, except the lights and cameras!

If you want to export Carrara stuff into Poser you have to export them as *.obj (works good) or *.3ds (works bad), you cannot export them as a scene like you can import Poser scenes into Carrara.

This way it not only works for Carrara 7 and 8 plus Poser Pro 2010 but also for prior versions of Poser.

Quote - ... however if you import that into Carrara...

 
That's what I was thinking of doing.

Quote - ... some poses are not looking the way as they do in Poser.

Ok, gonna pass on that then...

Quote - Much easier is it to use just your Poser runtime in Carrara...

Not much point for me to use Poser if I'm just going to load its content into Carrara and set up scenes there.  I'll stick with Poser.

Thanks.

"Not much point for me to use Poser if I'm just going to load its content into Carrara and set up scenes there.  I'll stick with Poser."

You're right on the first part and it's your decision on the second part.  Carrara is a far more robust and powerful app than Poser, that said you will have to make some minor adjustments on your textures from Poser as Carrara reads them differently (mostly it makes poser skin too 'shiny' but by lowering hightlight and shininess you can correct that).

However there is no reason I can think of to want to load Carrara stuff into Poser, so if you're happy with Poser and intend it to be your rendering app, then there's no reason for Carrara at all.

I was very dissatisfied with how slow Poser was to render, so I picked up Carrara 7 (and have now upgraded to Carrara 8).  Poser does one thing better than Carrara at the moment, which is dynamic cloth (and the only reason I haven't deleted Poser from my computer altogether).  Carrara dynamic hair is phenomenal and blows away anything I've seen from any other app, also Carrara includes modeling capabilities, a much faster renderer, landscape-building features, (plants, ocean, buildings etc) and very extensive and precise lighting.  Posing in Carrara is (for me) far easier than any other app I've used (others may feel free to disagree) and also be wary of losing some morphs if you build in Carrara (the best way to preserve all morphs to the exact specs of Poser is to build your character first in Poser, then save it making sure that 'use limits' is checked.  Then import into Carrara and the morphs will all behave correctly; then retexture the skin in Carrara and save for future use).

Again Poser does do dynamic cloth better than Carrara (though with the new bullet physics softbody, Carrara is being worked on and getting closer).  For everything else, I use Carrara.

Not trying to bash Poser, even though I'm not a huge fan of Poser I still use it on occasion, just wanted to clarify about what Carrara can do.

I know bone scaling has problems in Carrara, and I believe Poser magnets/DAZ|Studio d-forms do not work at all - that's a pretty big deal if you use DAZ V4.

All I use are Daz V4 and M4 currently (in the past I used V3 and M3 reduced resolution, but now with C8Pro and since I've moved to a 64 bit computer there seems no reason not to use M4/V4 even for my unimportant 'background' characters).

I have no problems.  I'm not saying it didn't take me some time to figure out how to use them with no problems, but currently I have no problems (that I'm aware of) all morphs work correctly.

I do use Carrara magnets to help simplify clothing fits as I find they are usually simpler and faster than fiddling with umpteen-hundred different clothing morphs and experimenting to find the one that will make the clothes move in the direction I want).

I have no idea whether bone scaling has problems in Carrara; I'm not sure what that would refer to.  I used Daz Studio a total of once, and found it so counter-intuitive and difficult I never used it again, so I'm not familiar with what d-forms are or how they work.  Poser magnets I know how to use but in Poser it took me too long to use them so I generally avoided, again in Carrara I at first avoided magnets for the same reason (thinking they would just be too complex to figure out) but eventually I discovered they were easy enough to use.  So working in Carrara, I do use the Carrara magnets and haven't felt any special urge to try to import Poser magnets into Carrara to do just the same thing.

If you were going to use Poser stuff in Carrara the two things you have to learn/understand is how to retexture your Poser stuff once it's in Carrara so that it's not too shiny, and also how to import the Poser stuff so that any morphs come through intact.  Again, I have no idea why you would need Poser magnets in Carrara (maybe there's something I'm missing), and I'm not certain what bone-scaling and Studio d-forms are, so I can't speak to that.

But I have no issues (that I'm aware of) with using either V4 or M4.

V4's internal magnets seem to work (at least. magnetize clothing works) in C6Pro so I assume the same would be true for C7Pro. External magnets do not seem to work in C6, don't know about C7.

For the price of a magazine you get SSS, caustics, particles, plants, terrains, the ability to make any object into a light, etc. etc. etc. OTOH, unless you really crave those features, I'm not sure it's worth the investment, especially if you're happy with Poser. The price is cheap enough, and I doubt you'll find anything closer to Cinema 4D or Max for that money except maybe free Blender. There is an investment in time though. Carrara's learning curve is pretty easy for just importing and using Poser stuff, but at a minimum, you'll probably have to learn a new material interface for anything beyond basic materials. Needless to say, if you want to use all the other neat goodies, you'll have to learn them as well. The basics of working with Poser shouldn't be a problem.

Some people use Carrara, C4D, Vue, etc. primarily as consumers of Poser content and may not even use Poser at all. Some use Poser for basic scene setup and then go the the other applications to take advantage of better render engines, modeling, landscapes etc. If you're comfortable with Poser, then the former may be a difficult adjustment. Unless you feel a compelling need for the latter then you may be better off investing the time in Poser. With the possible exception of Vue for outdoor scenes, I'm not sure you're going to find any application that will, out of the box, produce better renders than a reasonably experienced person can get with Poser and even then, you'll probably want SkinVue for the Poser figures.

@jonstark: You're absolutely right about the renderer! I use Carrara not that often because for me the GUI is not as easy as the Poser one but I'm slowly learning, I discovered the skin shader trick to reduce the highlights and shininess only recently...wish I had read your comments weeks ago!  But I have still to learn the lightning, maybe it's not more difficult than Poser's one but to learn that also took a while. I hope I get more into it with those Carrara scenes. Your image looks great but I never understood the hair room in Poser so I'm fearing Carrara's dynamic hair is even harder to understand.

mackis3D, I don't want to go too far afield, but I felt exactly as you do now about Carrara hair - I assumed it was something that would be difficult and complex to understand, however I was wrong.  Now if you want to build it from scratch, I'm no expert but the other day I thought I would experiment in building a short hairstyle from scratch for M4, took me about an hour of fiddling before I came up with something that was at least adequate, if not fancy.  Now that's really saying something about how useable the hair is, when you think about the fact that I'm still a moderate beginner at Carrara and I had never tried anything like that before.  In general though for very good hairstyles I rely on premade Carrara hair (my personal favorite is anything by 3Dcelebrity at Daz - check out 'dynamic venus hair' for an example, and naomi's hairs are pretty good too).   Styling is actually easier than with prop/character hair, now that I understand I really only need to know 2 tools in the hair room to make it go wherever I want - the select tool which will allow me to select which guide hair I want to move, and the brush tool, which will allow me to brush it in the direction I want it to go (just like a brush in real live).  Within the menu of the brush tool is the 'point' feature, which allows you to adjust the point of the hair where you want the brush to effect it (if you want to move only the very tip of the hair, move the point towards the end of the guide hair, if the middle then adjust the point to the middle, and if the root, adjust down to the root).

There are some very good hair tutorials for dynamic Carrara hair out there, http://forum.daz3d.com/Hosted_Tutorials/carrarahair/c6hairpart1.html

1. Dynamic Hair tutorial part 2
   http://forum.daz3d.com/Hosted_Tutorials/carrarahair/c6hairpart2.html

are two examples that really helped me understand how it all works.

Ok, that's pretty far afield from the original question, so I apologize, but I'd hate for you to avoid one of the greatest assets in using Carrara just because (like me) you might think it's too difficult/complex to learn.

Carrara isn't for everybody, there is no right answer in all of this, but so far it is the one purchase I've made (at full price for Carrara 7 pro by the way) in all of 3d that I am 100% happy with.  It works well for me, and I come from a Poser background.  Even at the regular sale price at DAZ for the Pro Carrara 8 version it is possibly the best value for money in all of 3d, except of course for Blender.  Vue is better at landscapes and atmospheres, but with a little elbow grease and willingness to work it, Carrara isn't terribly far behind, and Carrara does a host of things that Vue doesn't (also Vue is much more expensive).  Modo I've heard can render much faster than Carrara but again Modo is very expensive, and within it's price range Carrara is blazing fast.  With all it can do, it's mind-boggling that Carrara 7 Pro is free with a magazine subscription.  At that price, I can't see a valid reason not to get it.

As lmckenzie said above, though, depending on your needs and how comfortable you are with Poser, you may not need all of what Carrara provides.  Just depends on the individual, and what I found limiting about Poser may not be a problem for someone who uses it for totally different purposes than me.

@jonstark: Thanks for your inspiration, you took a bit the fear away to go into hair. I will try that tomorrow, the links are already bookmarked!