Manley - Thanks, I remember that, it explains a lot. I used to do basically the same with Poser/Transposer/Carrara. I haven't done much with dynamic cloth since Transposer went away. I just decided to wait for cloth in Carrara (though I have played a bit with it in DS - work much better than Poser dynamic cloth). It's been a loooooooooong wait!!

I don't think the staff at DAZ understand how frustrating the long renders in DS are for Carrara users (true for Poser as well). So many things in DS just aren't as easy as in Carrara (lighting and materials come to mind).

This probably won't help your frustration much, but I've worked in various areas of IT for the last 25 years, and this type of senario is actually quite common. Software A is updated, and it breaks the integration with software B. What is amazing is how often this happens when the two programs come from the same company. Were not talking about software in the DS/Carrara price range either. I've seen this with software that cost $5,000 to $10,000 per license. In fact, I got a call from a friend today that just had a $4,000 software package stop working with the change in the year (GPS post processing software for surveying). The company's response ..... "You need to buy a new license." Now hows that for good customer service!

I guess my point here is that though DAZ does do things a bit oddly at times, and they are definitely extremely good at breaking, and poor at fixing the compatibility between their software packages (honestly, I'd have to say they are one of the "best" at it I've seen, I really don't think they understand it isn't good for business). But, they are not alone. There are other companies that charge a small fortune for their software, and you would expect to have full compatibility when they "give" you updates, but fall well short of the mark. In fact, most IT people hate software upgrades because most of the time a software upgrade means hours, days, sometimes weeks fixing what the upgrade broke.

I ususally keep a copy of all versions of all my software for this very reason. Then if an upgrade breakes something, I can at least try to fix it by installing the previous version. I'm also very slow to upgrade, I'd rather know all the possible issues from others experiences, and not from my own (keeps my stress levels much lower). In fact, if an upgrade doesn't offer a must have feature, or fix a problem I've experienced, I usually don't upgrade. The old saying "If it ain't broke don't fix it!" is definitely a good guideline to live by when working with computers.

Again, I know none of this helps your situation now, but if C 8.5 fixes the DS to Carrara issue, it might be good food for thought going forward. Wendy (WendyLovesCats) still uses your workflow, if you haven't already, you might send her a PM and ask how she is doing it (my guess is the she is using the versions that worked for you). If you've tried reinstalling the versions that worked well together and had no luck, you might thry a registry/left behind program bits and pieces cleaner. I can't remember any of the good ones off hand, but if you feel up to trying it out, let me know and I'll get a couple names for you.

__________________________________________________________

My Rendo Gallery ........ My DAZ3D Gallery ........... My DA Gallery ......