@DustRider:

Thakns for your clarification regarding Octane. Actually the fact that Octane might not be able to fit a large scene in the GPU was what was holding me back. Since my main point of focus is animation, I would prefer to use a renderer that is native, super-fast and super-high-quality rather than use an external GPU based renderer, thus my insistance on having Embree built into Carrara.

Regarding Embree and AMD: your point is well-taken. I will ask in Embree's forums about it.

Embree is open-source and the source code is surprisingly small. I do sure hope that Intel has done it right and designed Embree in a way that it runs flawlessly, or at least can be modified easily to run flawlessly, on AMD processors as well.

Regarding Project Messiah: This is the kind of software that I would like Carrara to evolve into. Project Messiah has all the features that I could wish for. Its interface is nice and pleasant to work with, but the small font size and the small icons they are using causes eye-fatigue quickly, I wish they could address this issue.

I looked at their expression system and how relatively easily you can build complex procedural animations with it. I wish Carrara's formula system could be extended into a full-blown expression system similar to Ptoject Messiah's.

At this time my wish for Carrara is, if I can express it in a formula:

My ideal Carrara = Project Messiah + Embree + Daz/Poser content support + Weight-mapped V4/A4/M4/H4 (No Need for Genesis, at least not at his time) + Hexagon + Rejuvenated metaball and spline modelers + Some of Bryce's features + A storyboard room that actually works + Offered at a non-discounted price of $549 to $749.

I think it's doable and, at the prices I mentioned, it will be a profitable top-seller to the prosumer market.

Whether Daz, the Software Company, can do it is another story though.