I would like to start this thread to comtain requests for simple features, or featurettes, that would help Carrara become better, way better, at very little development cost.

I start with these 3 featurettes:

1. Shader list rollback. This featurette has been requested over and over for many years by many users. It shouldn't take more than 1/2 day to implement it.

2. A flag to enable/disable SSS globally. When you have 100 shaders with SSS, you want to be able to disable them for quick test renders without going into each shader one by one. I don't believe this featurette would take more than a day, at most two, to implement.

3. The ability to bring the selected object in front of the camera. Right now you press 0 (zero) to place the camera in front of the selected object. It would be great to have a shortcut, say shift+zero that would would place the selected object in front of the camera. This featurette would be very useful in large scenes (for example a highrise building) where the camera is in the 40th floor, then you double-click a piece of furniture and it is placed at the point of coordintaes 0,0,0 in the first floor. Now you have to drag it to the 40th floor manually. If one could just press shift+zero and it would place the selected object in front of the camera in the 40th floor, it would be a great time-saver. This featurette shouldn't take more than a couple of days to implement.

Please add your own request for featurettes to this list. But remember it must be featurettes not requests like a full implementation of Vray inside Carrara.

Doc Bernie

I don't know if these count as featurettes...

1. I'd like a Reality Plug in for Carrara. The guy who created it for D|S said there wasn't enough desire for it when he ran a poll in the old forums (it looked like about everyone who posts in the forums said they wanted it, so i don't know how he came to that conclusion, but...). Daz could pay him whatever to make it and add it to Carrara for a small amount of money.

2. I'd like an easier way to get into the Texture room. When I try to go into the texture room, it often tells me I'm going to change  a master texture or something. I have to go and select "Scene" in order to not have this warning pop up and that should be fixed because it kept it is such a hassle. A minor one, but irritating.

Dr Bernie, I'm not sure what a shader rollback would be, though I do trust it is something I would want, judging by the other items put forward.  Is there a more detailed description of what this would be?  I 1000% agree about the idea of putting a checkbox to disable SSS in the render room.

Tsarist, I trust you already know about the Luxus for Carrara plugin, yes?  I understand there's a new update already submitted to DAZ for implementation that should add more features.  I've barely started playing with Luxus to find correct skin settings, but it does seem to export to Lux for rendering pretty well, and there is both an OpenGL version (for those who have monster computers with video cards that allow GPU rendering) and a non OpenGL version (for those poor souls like me that don't have access to higher cost computer equipment).   This is not to discourage Reality from making a Lux plugin, but just thought I would mention there is already another plugin that will work if you want to render unbiased in Lux.

I suppose dynamic cloth would really be more of a complex added feature to put in a request in this thread. 

However a knife tool for the modelling room seems like an easy and quick thing to add, so I'll go with that for now, and add more as they occur to me.

Oh, and update the manual to reflect new features added in 8 and 8.5.

That's not a big feature request either, in my opinion.  DAZ has acted like the only way to get an updated manual is to hire some expensive 3rd party to analyze Carrara from the ground up as if no one has ever used Carrara before and start from scratch, a project that will take months/years and be oh sooo expensive.

But it's a ridiculous approach, IMO.  We already have a Carrara 7 manual.  Simple make a note on a napkin if you need too of all the features added in 8, and all the features added in 8.5.  It's not a huge list, by the way.  Then assign one of the secretaries in the office to write up a paragraph or 2 on each feature (just ask one of the devs what each feature does, then put a description in english).  Add a screenshot or two sprinkled here and there and then add it all to what's already done in the Carrara 7 manual.  Should take far less than a week, and only take that long if you're secretary is unusually lazy!

Personally I don't care about the manual because I learn better by experimenting, rendering, and asking questions on the forum, but by God DAZ did lead everone to believe there would be a manual, and they should keep that committment.  And frankly it would easily put to rest one of the greatest and most persistant complaints I hear in every Carrara forum.  C'mon DAZ, just get it done!

@Tsarist: Your first request is definitely a featurette. A Reality plugin is a multi-month development and can't be oonsidered a featurette.

@Jon Stark: Shader list rollback is an annoying issue in the shader room. When the shader list is too long to fit in the height of the screen (V4 or M4 shaders are typical examples) and you scroll down the list and double-click on a shader to bring it into view (to add SSS for example) the shader list jumps back to the top. This is truly annoying and slows-you down a lot when you want to go through every shader in the list because you must scroll-down the list continuously to find where you were.

A dynamic cloth plugin is not a featurette. But I guess a knife tool is.

I hope this list will grow to about 50 featurettes and then I will submit it to Daz for review and implementation.

Quote - @Jon Stark: Shader list rollback is an annoying issue in the shader room. When the shader list is too long to fit in the height of the screen (V4 or M4 shaders are typical examples) and you scroll down the list and double-click on a shader to bring it into view (to add SSS for example) the shader list jumps back to the top. This is truly annoying and slows-you down a lot when you want to go through every shader in the list because you must scroll-down the list continuously to find where you were.

Oh yeah, that drives me crazy, especially because I spend a ton of time in the texture room tweaking textures.

Quote - I hope this list will grow to about 50 featurettes and then I will submit it to Daz for review and implementation.

Ya, right. Several of these suggestions have been made several times over the years. Hasn't happened. I've been griping about the shader list role back since I got carrara. I don't see any of this happening.

I wouldn't expect any of this in C10 let alone C9, if carrara makes it that far. I think DAZ isn't saying anything about C9 for the same reason they kept the pricing of C8.5 under wraps till it's release. There wont be anything new in C9 to get excited about. I expect C9 to be little more then C8.5 with some bug fixes. I don't expect any real new features, what I expect as "new features" will be like the light icons. Fluff features that look nice but don't make any actual improvements and aren't actual "features".

What do I expect in C9? An all new interface that is almost identical to Studios. DAZ will then; as they have done now, blaim carraraest for the lacking in sales. Much like a child that won't take responcability for their own actions.

How about the on going issue of the spot light cone lighting up objects out side of the cone. The cone has always light up objects opposet from the camera yet no where near the light.

Or ground fog that incerts at about the size of an old phone booth. Scaling it up distorts it in to uslessness, that is why clouds make better ground fog. I can actually set cloud size to the same as the ground plane.

Why is it when you have a lot of replicators in a scene, even though visability is turned off, trying to move the camera acts like thy are still on. My swamp scene has gotten to where it is next to imposable to work. Forget making minor adjustments items in scene, or small changes to camera angle. Everything still jerks, jumps, and lags badly like all the replicators are still visable.

I was having issues with getting my water lillies to float right on the water plane. Regarless of what I did the tip of root of the lilly is what set on the water plane. So I duplicated the water plane, set the lillies on it and moved it down to where the lillies were floating right on the visable water plane. Took an hour and a half of waiting for the lag responce to moving the dummy water plane up and down, to finally get them in the right place. The only thing visable in the scene was the lillies and the water plane, yet I still had as much lag as I would have if I'd left everything visable.

And of corse when C9 meets with further lack luster sales DAZ is going to gripe about us carraraests not appreciating all the work DAZ put in to it. If I want my car painted dark matalic blue, and you paint it flat hot pink, I am not going to thank you for the paint job.

While it occurred to me... can we get a feature fix for the glow channel on textures?  When using Global Illumination, you can use the Glow channel in an objects texture to turn it into a very nice meshlight, but there is a limitation in that while it gives very realistic lighting and falloff, the light it gives off from the glow channel doesn't seem to interact at all with the Highlight and Shininess channels.  So I'd like a feature request to correct this, so that when using the Glow channel as a light it behaves like all other lights in Carrara, and causes Highlight/Shininess to be activated on any textures the glow light falls on.

In exactly the same vein, HDRI lighting also should trigger Highlight/Shininess as well.

Not knowing what kind of effort would need to be applied to correct this, it's possible that even though this seems like a simple fix, it may fall beyond the parameters of a Simple Feature, though.

I would add a searchable content browser

Quote - I would add a searchable content browser

I forgot about that one.

Yes! What a big help that would be. Hell, I needed it just yesterday.

Quote - I would add a searchable content browser

Thanks.

I would like to add to this request:

1. Larger thumnails in Content Browser. Thumbnails are currently too small and sometime difficult to see.

2. Instead of the mile long list of Faces, Figures, Hands, Poses and Props, have them in 'subtabs' of their own so you can access them quickly.

In fact my suggestion for the content browser would be to trash the Smart Content tab and copy shamelessly Poser's Library Management system. It's neat, it's clean and it's very comfortable to work with. This is more than a featurette and would probably take a couple of months for one developer. But it's far shorter than the time Daz spent on the smart content thingy.

My runtimes are sorted by character so I don't get mile long lists except for V4 clothes lol

Try this, fix HDRI so it works with the trasparency and alpha channles better. I've had issues with shadows cast by transparent objects for quite a while. Yes even with both "light through transparency"s selected. I still get shadows from eyebrows with the mil3 figures; DAZ removed the use of the eyebrow mesh in mil4 {yae my red head has black eyebrows } Or shadows from transpaent hair and clothes; as in making a sleave transpaernt to make a short sleeved shirt means dark arms because the transparent sleeve is still casting a shadow.

Makes using HDRI a PITA.

Stan, I'm sure you already know this, but in the Top Shader section there's a checkbox "No Light Interactions When Fully Transparent".  If this isn't checked, then even if the Transparency is set at 100% there will still be some shadow effect.

Regarding HDRI:

1. Make the HDRI lighting work in indoor scenes that have no windows (Like Poser and, I believe, Lightwave).

2. HDRI shouldn't be implemented as a background image but as a light type whose properties are supplied by an hdri image. In the case of a spherical hdri map, each point of the sphere is a distant light **composed of only one ray **that is perpendicular to the sphere at that point and has all the behaviors of a distant light except it doesn't cast shadows.

Certainly, Carrara could be a highly respected, mid-range, all-purpose 3D application, with a few enhancements to some basic tools, and the addition of some other simple things, especially in the modeling module.

My first experience using Carrara will likely be my last, as I just couldn't find a justification to use the software in any kind of productive workflow over what I currently use.  That's not to say it's not a capable application, it just didn't have any features that I found useful enough to increase productivity.  Here's some easy things to add to the modeling module that might increase the overall value of the software to a lot of people:

More robust vertice/edge/poly selections.  For example, a simple "select similar" option would have come in very handy during my short time modeling in the software.  It's a simple feature, but extremely useful.  The ability to select polygons or edges, by certain topological similarities, is a feature most modern, capable modeling software have, but I couldnt' find it in Carrara.  It's something I use nearly every modeling session in 3dsmax and Maya.  In addition, a feature to automatically select all non quad faces, would be most handy.  Again, a common selection feature in most modeling apps that I didn't find in Carrara, even in the help documentation.

A polygon "Inset" command.  I mean, it has a dynamic extrusion tool, which is far more complex (although I found it awkward to control), but no simple inset tool?  Strange.  Insetting is probably one of the most useful tools in polygon modeling.  It's basically a bevel without extrusion.

A modeling symmetry tool.  This is one I couldn't believe wasn't in there, but I searched the docs and couldn't find it, so I'm assuming it isn't.  Modeling with symmetry is a must for any serious modeling work, and is a staple in most modeling apps I've used.  Very handy and productive feature.

There's quite a few more simple things, but I'll leave it up to the users.  Doesn't seem like modeling in Carrara is a priority, and I see why actually.  Perhaps, if there's no interest to improve it, then simply do away with the modeling module altogether, and free up the resources for the other main features you guys want most?

I have been all over this issue since C7. I have found no cure for HDRI trans shadow.

@ maxxxmodelz:

I agree with you that Carrara's modeler is anything but high-end, and you shouldn't consider it for any complex modeling task.

But fortunately there is Hexagon, which currently sells for $19.95 at Daz. Hexagon is a modeler in the same league as Silo. It is very responsive and very comfortable to work with. It has native support for .car files, so you can model in Hexagon, then open the file in Carrara for texturing, rigging, animating and rendering.

For this reason, and considering Hexagon's very low price, I am not insisting on Carrara's modeling room improvements at this time.

Although in the long run, as Jon Stark suggested in another thread, I would very much like to see all of Hexagon's features migrated to Carrara.

Quote - Regarding HDRI:

1. Make the HDRI lighting work in indoor scenes that have no windows (Like Poser and, I believe, Lightwave).

2. HDRI shouldn't be implemented as a background image but as a light type whose properties are supplied by an hdri image. In the case of a spherical hdri map, each point of the sphere is a distant light **composed of only one ray **that is perpendicular to the sphere at that point and has all the behaviors of a distant light except it doesn't cast shadows.

 

This would be my number one request.  I would lilke to use HDRI inside without removing the roof and/or walls.

Klebnor

Quote - This would be my number one request.  I would lilke to use HDRI inside without removing the roof and/or walls.

Klebnor

Thanks. This should not take more than a month for one developer to implement, so it still qualifies as a featurette.

Do you agree with my definition of spherical HDRI lighting? i.e. it's not a background image but a light type whose properties are supplied by a spherical hdri map.

The map is wrapped around a sphere and each point of the sphere is one ray of distant light that is perpendicular to the sphere at that point. It has all the properties of a distant light except it does not cast shadows.

There should also be a slider to set the global intensity of the hdri light, but we already have that.

I've always considered HDRI as out side lighting and point lights as inside lighting.

None the less DAZ has proven incapable of this sort of work. Bullet is from a different company and shoehorned in. Triax weightmapping is from a different company and shoehorned in. The changes DAZ has made have amounted to changing the UI and light icons. DAZ has not added any new features that it developed it's self.

Some anomalies in Carrara's lights behavior that need to be fixed, or am I the only one to consider them as anomalies?

1. A bulb light has a range, a range fall-off, but has no fall-off type (Linear, inverse squared or logarithmic). Is this an omission or or is it the way a bulb light should behave?

2. A tube light emits light from both its ends. This isn't how tube lights behave in real world. Is this the way tube lights are supposed to behave in 3D world or is it an implementation shortcoming?

3. Disc and rectangular shape lights emit light from both sides. The also emit light from their periphery. I believe I saw in a demo of Cinema4D that their shape lights emit light from one side only, which is the behavior I would personally expect from a shape light.

Correcting these issues (if indeed they are issues) shouldn't take more than a couple of days and they would make Carrara's lighting so much more accurate.

pyCarrara is a python scripting plugin for Carrara

 http://pycarrara.sourceforge.net/

It has some interesting features as seen in these demos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JthuvE-0P68

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcckh-gLGOA

But apparently its development is lagging behind, probably due to lack of funds. If Daz could come-up with some arrangement to help the developer, it would greatly benefit Carrara.

Implementing this plugin in Carrara would be a tremendous added value, although it is not exactly a featurette.

I would like to add to this list the Embree raytracing library by Intel. I already mentioned this in another thread but it got no attention at all.

This library, as its name indicates, is a set of fast raytracing algorithms developed by Intel.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/embree-photo-realistic-ray-tracing-kernels

This library has been deemed worthy and reliable enough that Maxon implemented it in its Cinem4D R15 release, resulting in some significant speed improvement - up to 300% - in Cinema4D's already super-fast renderer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJd-WEtkg-

The implementation of this library in Carrara's renderer could give it a much needed speed boost - probably in the 1000% to 2000% range - and would enable us users to finally use Carrara's GI without waiting 2 days to render just 1 frame, and I'm talking here from personal experience.

This isn't a featurette, but its implementation in Carrara shouldn't take more than 4 to 5 months for one developer, and at this price it would be a great added value to Carrara, because it could make its renderer speed comparable to the likes of Cinema4D.

hya a as already said

knife tool

proper content search

proper instances search

ability to arrange library from within - ie change directory position or insert a folder between two folders

sorry I haven' t been getting updates on threads here, maybe daz forum designers have been here too :)

Of all the feature requests for Carrara, the implementation of Embree should be given the highest priority.

This is the one single feature that will add the highest value to Carrara at a reasonable development cost.

I personally think that with Embree a 20x to 30x boost in Carrara's native render speed is feasible, while significantly improving the output quality.

Daz better listen, because Poser Pro 2016 will most likely use Embree, and that will outright kill Carrara.

I would like to continue adding requests for simple features to this thread.

This post however is not about adding features, but about removing outdated features. Some of the features in Carrara are so out-of-place in a modern 3D app that a CG professional considering buying Carrara would walk-away with a laugh because he/she will immediately realize that certain aspects of Carrara are relics from ancient times.

1. On top of my list of features to be thrown-out, is the tiny preview window in the Render Room. This preview window was, if I'm not mistaken, already in RDS 3.0, and was not of much use even in those days when slow 50 MHz 486 CPU's and 16 MB EGA video cards ruled the earth.

But in these days and ages of Live Render Preview, that even Poser has, the Carrara's preview window does not convey any useful information. It's so outdated that it will cause a CG professional to have second thoughts about buying or using Carrara.

I am not wishing for Live Preview at this time. One solution would be to keep the 'Preview' button and do a 640x480 render with all of user's render settings. This way the user gets a fast and accurate preview that gives a clear idea of what the final render looks like.

2. Then comes the Anything Glows light type. In the ancient times of 50 MHz 486 CPU's this light type was a cheap, and probably efficient, way to implement light emitting objects by adding spot lights on an object's facets.

In our times of multi-cores, multi-threaded 4GHz+ i7's, when even Poser has true light emitting objects, and had it since PP 2012, the Anything Glows light type is a true outdated feature. The CG professional wants light-emitting objects or textures, not a gimmicky Anything Glows from ancient times.

I am putting the replacing of Anything Glows light with light emitting objects a la Poser, or better yet light emitting textures a la Lux on my wish list. It is not exactly a featurette, but also certainly not a multi-year development, and will add, I believe, tremendous value to Carrara.

3. In the Texture Room, the filtering mode for a texture map has a 'Summed Area Table' option which simply does not work. Try to use it and you will see seams appear all over the place very quickly. I have never seen a bug report regarding this, which proves that nobody ever used this filtering mode. So what's the point of keeping a buggy feature that nobody even uses? Can't it just be eliminated? This could simplify the renderer and eventually make it slightly faster.

4. In the same Texture Room, texture maps have an 'Interpolation' option which is checked by default. Interpolation means that the renderer calculates the exact color values in the render space for only a limited number of points. For nearby points it Interpolates based on the few exact values it calculated, so the renderer works faster. This feature made sense in the times of 50 MHz 486's, but in our times when even laptops have supercomputer-like performances, it has no purpose anymore and can be eliminated. Let the renderer calculate the color value for each point exactly, without doing any interpolation. The result will be a more professional looking Carrara.

Of course no interpolation means slower renders. Fortunately there is a very good solution to this. It's called Embree. You want Carrara's renderer to be faster, a lot faster, possibly 30x faster? Then use Intel's Embree technology. The renderer in Carrara could get a phenomenally mind-blowing speed boost by using Intel's technology, whose implementation in Carrara shouldn't take more than 6 months for a developer who is familiar with the renderer's code.

5. In the Render Room, there is a 'Full Raytracing' checkbox at the top of the options. This option is off by default, because raytracing was slow with 50 MHz 486 CPU's, so it had to be turned-off for quick test renders.

But with today's fast CPU's, this option does not make sense anymore. Let he renderer use raytracing all the time, and use Embree to speed-up its operations.

As a comparison, Shade's renderer, which is a jaw-dropping world-class renderer, does raytracing by default and Path Tracing as an option. You cannot turn-off raytracing in Shade. Obviously Shade's renderer belongs to 21st century, and it shows.

6. In the same Render Room, Under the 'Indirect Light' option, there is an 'Interpolation' checkbox which is checked by default with a default precision value of 10%. This feature made sense when PC's were slow, but with today's PC, it can be eliminated to rejuvenate Carrara. Let the renderer calculate GI or AO without interpolation. The renderer can become slower, but fortunately, as I mentioned above, there is Embree to come to the rescue.

These were some of the outdated features in Carrara that I think should be eliminated. There are some others that I will make the subject of a future post.

I disagree with these:

"5. In the Render Room, there is a 'Full Raytracing' checkbox at the top of the options. This option is off by default, because raytracing was slow with 50 MHz 486 CPU's, so it had to be turned-off for quick test renders.

But with today's fast CPU's, this option does not make sense anymore. Let he renderer use raytracing all the time, and use Embree to speed-up its operations.

As a comparison, Shade's renderer, which is a jaw-dropping world-class renderer, does raytracing by default and Path Tracing as an option. You cannot turn-off raytracing in Shade. Obviously Shade's renderer belongs to 21st century, and it shows.

6. In the same Render Room, Under the 'Indirect Light' option, there is an 'Interpolation' checkbox which is checked by default with a default precision value of 10%. This feature made sense when PC's were slow, but with today's PC, it can be eliminated to rejuvenate Carrara. Let the renderer calculate GI or AO without interpolation. The renderer can become slower, but fortunately, as I mentioned above, there is Embree to come to the rescue.

These were some of the outdated features in Carrara that I think should be eliminated. There are some others that I will make the subject of a future post."

I do not agree with all of those:

One: Not everyone has up to date "Today's PC" to work with.  There are more than you think of the older, crankier systems being used (very, very carefully) in these programs.  Killing options like 5 and 6 can kill those user's options of using the program altogether.

Two: I happen to have Carrara run test renders while working on a different scene in Poser 10 and LuxRender rendering yet another scene at the same time.  I like the option of working multiple programs at once, and the additional work with the tests in raytrace could put a kink in that.  Not only that, but not everyone tests with Raytrace lights on.  Nor does everyone want too.

Three: EMBREE......this can be a plug in rather than an additional in house render system; again, I prefer to have my options open instead of being stuck with one or two in-house rendering systems. 

Four: Most "professional" modelers and rendering houses do not go to Carrara for their projects.  Hate to say it, but since 2007 (when I started using these programs), the "standard" programs are generally over a grand to purchase one license to use.  Modo, Maya, Vue and C4D for example.  VRay, Octane, Maxwell, and Indigo are usually the standards you'll see used in various movie/tv/commerical products.

Either way, there is always more than one way to do something- Yes?

With Embree in Carrara your renders will become so fast that you will no longer need to turn-off full raytracing or use interpolation to get some speed.

I am almost certain that Embree will be in Poser Pro 2016, simply because Smith Micro's management team is competent at managing software products and Daz's management isn't.

With Embree in Poser Pro 2016, there will be no point in using Carrara anymore.

Quote - With Embree in Carrara your renders will become so fast that you will no longer need to turn-off full raytracing or use interpolation to get some speed.

I am almost certain that Embree will be in Poser Pro 2016, simply because Smith Micro's management team is competent at managing software products and Daz's management isn't.

With Embree in Poser Pro 2016, there will be no point in using Carrara anymore.

 

Again- there are those users who cannot use a render engine like Embree.  There are many I know personally that still run C6 simply because they cannot invest in both a new system and new programs.  Some simply are happy at where they are, and a few like the challenge of the older programs.

There will always be a 'point'.  Embree will not be the go-to, end-all rendering engine that has everyone drop one program for another.

Ever since the Beta 1, it has had issues.  Will you have to have a SSE3 supported CPU? 

Again- there is no one answer for everyone's needs.  I, for one, struggled for many years with a system that was almost seven years old when it finally died- after twenty or so HD wipes and restores to try and get it to work with DS3 and C3/C7. 

If you want industry standard, research it.  this is not industry standard yet- and to say that people will walk away from Carrara because of it is a bit of a lofty predicition.  What documentation do you have to support the fact that Poser will be using this- and if it's in 2016, what does it matter NOW?  They have only just released Poser 10 and Poser Pro 2014.

People who are still using C6 have probably no wish for the future of the 3D app they're using. So what is the point of even discussing new features?

Cn't you suggest some of your own wishes so we can make some progress?

Can you not have an attitude- my wishes are for things that will not just bring Carrara to the next level (none of my wishes are short fixes, except for the few already stated.  The capacity to search.  Not to have the textures scroll back to the top as I work through them.  Disable/enable SSS globally.

You were the one that put it out there that  no one has the older systems that would be able to use Embree.  You were the one that brought Embree up.  I simply stated that I know at least twenty users who use the older versions of the program that would not be able to support this "get Embree and toss Carrara out - everyone laughs at it anyway" idea that was placed in the thread. 

I like the options of turning off and on the Raytrace, but the Interlopation I never use unless the scene has little Raytrace light (which I've had more than a few)- then it can come in handy.

I also have C3, C6 Pro, C7 and C8...so I have been able to see the progress of what's been given as the program evolves.  If there are going to be out of program render engines, fine.  There are plenty out there to choose from, if you can export the scene from Carrara into it.

Such as Blender's Cycles for one.

Perhaps a better export option(s) for the switch from Carrara, to Poser, Studio or elsewhere.  I've had Carrara crashes while trying exporting CAE.  Several.

Quote - People who are still using C6 have probably no wish for the future of the 3D app they're using. So what is the point of even discussing new features?

Doc

I'm running C7Pro now. I do own 8Pro, but haven't installed it yet. 

If I get a new machine soon, I probably will install it.

That said, artists who don't upgrade might not have the money. I have an interest in seeing my 3D app progress, just like many others, even those who are still running C6Pro. 

Money is tight these days, especially in the Arts Community.

I'm enjoying your thread, and agree with many of your points, just wanted to clear up that one issue.

Thanks Tsarist for your support.

Actually this thread is a lot less futile than it seems. If you look at my first post in this thread under point 3 and you look at this new Fenric plugin (link), it looks like Fenric and I had the same idea around the same time, so I think my requests, or others as well, sometime make perfect sense.

MaxxxModelz,

  I model almost exclusively in Carrara and although I agree with some of what you say about selection tools in carrara but by no means should Daz ditch the Vertex Modeler.  

  Carrara does have a Symmetry tool , it is in the VM rooms Property Panel,Model Tab and you can choose whatever axis you want to use symmetry in. Not all of the tools can be used with the symmetry tool on but it is very usefull.

 I don't know what the Inset tool does but by your description wouldn't using "Extract Along" work here, it is in the Model Menu tab or icon at the top of the VM room gui. You could also use the "Extract Around" tool too.

Cheers,

Mike

Quote - A polygon "Inset" command.  I mean, it has a dynamic extrusion tool, which is far more complex (although I found it awkward to control), but no simple inset tool?  Strange.  Insetting is probably one of the most useful tools in polygon modeling.  It's basically a bevel without extrusion.

A modeling symmetry tool.  This is one I couldn't believe wasn't in there, but I searched the docs and couldn't find it, so I'm assuming it isn't.  Modeling with symmetry is a must for any serious modeling work, and is a staple in most modeling apps I've used.  Very handy and productive feature.

There's quite a few more simple things, but I'll leave it up to the users.  Doesn't seem like modeling in Carrara is a priority, and I see why actually.  Perhaps, if there's no interest to improve it, then simply do away with the modeling module altogether, and free up the resources for the other main features you guys want most?

I agree wit mmoir that Carrara''s modeler can be taken out without much impact on its user community.

I know some users do marvelous things with Carrara's modeler, but they are a tiny fraction. The vast majority of Carrara users probably rarely or even never use the modeler.

I don't think that Carrara's modeler can be reliably used to model anything more than a piece of furniture or a simple house or very simple objects.

Hexagon can be used as a front-end modeler to Carrara. Create your model in Hexagon, save it as a .car file, then open it in Carrara for uv-mapping and texturing.

Lightwave also has separate modeler (called Modeler) and animation tools (called Layout) so I don't see why Carrara shouldn't.

Another feature that I wou;d like to be thrown out of Carrara is the Pupeteer which is nothing but a gimmick of a feature to impress the amateur would-be artist. The pupeteer may be OK to get Michael wave his hands, but to create realistic and accurate animations it is light years behind. Even Studio's Animate 2 plugin does a lot better job at creating animations than the pupeteer.

The pupeteer does not add any value to Carrara and I would really like to be contradicted on this if someone could show me a few interesting animations done with it.

In other words the pupeteer is a joke of a feature that any professional would laugh at. Throwing it out will only help Carrara to become less of the laughing matter that it has become under Daz3D's inept softwrae management.

 I use the modeller all the time. Not for anything fancy but I often dissect ready mades and bang them together into another model. Also for simple vertex shapes for masks and anything glows sources. Taking the modeller out would be a pain in the backside and could only be suggested by someone who doesn't use carrara often enough ;) 

just a small dig :)

a knife tool would be invaluable in the modeller and its really hobbles the usefulness of the vm for me. Knife tool is you draw the cursor across some edges or a poly and where it cross the edges it makes a verticie and if it goes from one edge to another in a poly it makes a new edge - all the way  through the mesh or just on a selcted polygon, great for cuitting loops in etc when box modelling especially

apologies for my poor english :)

I use carrara's modeling quite a bit, but not for modeling. I use it for modding content; read as fixing clothes most of the time. I just spent an hour the other day modding two wagons to make a medieval hay wagon. But from scratch modeling I always do in Hex.

Also I use the modeling in carrara for modeling features in to landscapes; drop in terrain prim, convert to vertex to model in roads, flats, rivers ect.

So I wouldn't want to see it removed, polish it up, make it more stable/easier to use. But I don't think it needs to be developed to be the modeler Hex is.

Assuming people that are using an older version of Carrara aren't interested; or shouldn't be, in upgrades to carrara is wrong. As has been said many of us are on limited budgets, and if the choices are updating to the latest version of carrara or paying this light bill which do you think is going to win. I'm trying to get by on a piddily little monthly stock dividend. I have a budget and the over priced C8.5 doesn't fit in to it.

More over as has been pointed out what version of carrara you can use depends on the comp you are running. Figure for some people the cost of carrara is negotiable compared to the cost of a new comp. Meaning just because some one wants C8 doesn't mean the comp they own can run it.

When I retired that old gateway; finally, it was so old that it wasn't good for much more then web browsing. When my last comp fried and before I got this comp I was back on that old gateway, I tried but rendering with C8/8.5 would bring it to a standstill for most of the day. It could run C8 but that was all it could do, and trying to work in a scene of any size bogged it down to frustratingly slow. For the most part scenes were unworkable.