I don't do photo real. I like realistic, but photo real takes a lot of work, hipoly figures, hirez textures, and a much deeper understanding of the render engine then I have.

But I don't like having a lot of stuff done for me. The more you have done for you the less of you there is in the end. This is one of the bad points of premades, clone art. Just watch any CG gallery and very soon after a new character or artical of clothing hits the market you will see dozens of renders using it. I don't buy characters, I dial spin up my characters so they don't look alike or like anyone elses character. Skins on the other hand can easily be touched up or toned up in a photo editor. I like to get hirez skins and do minor edits to them to avoid clonieisiam.

What I really love is staging, so I like premades. I can model, but I don't have the patience to model everything in a scene. Not to mention the skill.

If you could go back and look at my wish list for C6 you would see it is still pertenet. As carrara has gotten little on it. Much better atmospherics is at the top of my list, having used TG before I got carrara. Most of carrara's atmospherics are quite weak and have gotten very few updates over the years.

Next on my list from C6 was dynaimc clothing. I was doing dynaimc clothing animations in Poser then using transposer to get it in to carrara to finish staging. Then DAZ axed transposer; can't have carrara users from DAZ using Poser dynaimc clothing. Or the BS excuse DAZ gave us of carrara not being poser compatable after 7. Funny, I can still open poser PZ3s in carrara. There was no reason to ax transposer aside from severing the carrara/poser link.

When I had DS3 it was easy enough to do the dynaimc clothing sims in it, then send then to carrara via collada to finish staging. DAZ broke that then spent 2 years try to duplicate it with DUF. I can get them in to carrara now, but optitex dynaimc clothing does not work as well in Studio 4 as it did in DS3. I've done 20 some odd sims in Studio 4 and have yet to get one worth rendering in carrara. I did one with M4 the baggy pants and hoody, by the end of the sim it looked like his belly button was eating the pants and hoody.

With C8 DAZ managed to shoehorn in a 3rd party physics engine. Bullet physics, and with the tweaks in C8.5 you can now drape most clothing; yes that includes conforming clothes. It's not dynamic clothing yet, although I have seen some animations done in carrara with bullet of dynaimc clothing, I have yet manage duplicate it.

C9 will suposedly be out first quarter next year. I don't see that happening. So far DAZ has been so closed mouthed about it. I have yet to hear anything about what may be in it, if anything. And with it's suposed release in a matter of months I have to wonder why DAZ isn't giveing a hint of what may be in it, let alone why it would be a full release. Personally I don't see DAZ managing to get anything in it in that amount of time, that would warent a full upgrade release.

I also have to wonder why any company would spend 2 years developing a .5 just to release a full upgrade in a matter of months. One will surely kill the sales of the other. People will ether get .5 and blow off C9 for a while, or just skip C8.5 and wait for C9. Unless C9 has some out standing new features, people that get C8.5 more then likly will wait for C9.1 or .2 and still may not get it for a while after release.

And my train of thought has been derailed; my cat is demanding food other then what is in his dish, and mom's Oring is leaking on her upstares toilet. So chors to do.

 

Edit to add. I have a spell checker in Firefox, but it has never worked on this forum.