Well, I contacted Daz support and asked about the future of Carrara. They said (after a thank you for your interest) , that they simply don’t have the resources to currently develop Carrara. And, that any future plans can’t be discussed publicly. I have the feeling that, even though Daz won’t develop it, maybe someone else would or, it might go into public domain, like Blender. Maybe if we all created a petition?

Thanks for sharing.

Let's hope this excellent program that we all love will have another incarnation of some sort.

starting to think they deliberately trying to kill carrara

There was a discussion some time back about DAZ's strategy being to keep the owners of Poser from getting Carrara. It was based on comments from a person who reportedly had knowledge of the DAZ plan, not just a disgruntled Carrara user. In any case, I put the chances of DAZ developing a new version at slim and none, and Slim left town. But my copy works fine, and I don't feel like I need a lot of new features (being interested in animation with Poser format content, not modeling).

It is my opinion that Daz bought Eovia to keep their products off the market -- and to keep Smith-Micro from obtaining them.

Neither Carrara nor Hexagon deserve this fate.

I still want to very much work with Carrara. The problem comes several years down the line, when it will no longer work with a modern OS. As we'll need to upgrade our OS to use subscription Photoshop, or surf the net. Shame on Daz for this problem.

galaxiefilm posted at 9:41AM Mon, 17 April 2017 - #4302776

It is my opinion that Daz bought Eovia to keep their products off the market -- and to keep Smith-Micro from obtaining them.

Neither Carrara nor Hexagon deserve this fate.

I don't have any information on Carrara's future, but I have to point out that Daz did develop several versions of Carrara, as well as releasing updates to Hexagon (which in some cases added new features).

Artformz2 posted at 12:07PM Mon, 17 April 2017 - #4302817

I still want to very much work with Carrara. The problem comes several years down the line, when it will no longer work with a modern OS. As we'll need to upgrade our OS to use subscription Photoshop, or surf the net. Shame on Daz for this problem.

One answer is to keep an old machine to run old software. I'm doing this with Adobe's discontinued PageMaker, running it on an old WinXP laptop. My main animation machine is a Win7 box custom built by a local shop, very sturdy components - they recommended not turning it off (problem- thunderstorms, even with a good surge protector). So I think I can keep it running indefinitely with the shop's help.

RHaseltine posted at 12:12PM Mon, 17 April 2017 - #4302821

I don't have any information on Carrara's future, but I have to point out that Daz did develop several versions of Carrara, as well as releasing updates to Hexagon (which in some cases added new features).

Yes, but ... they never delivered the updated documentation promised with the V.8 upgrade. And again shipped the V.8.5 upgrade (not free) with V.7 documentation. They still do, last I checked, although the status on the documentation changed from "Coming Soon!" (for several years) to "TBD". There was a "Quickstart Guide" or similar, but not a comprehensive Documentation update.

hadnt heard anything that carrara doesnt work on win10?? dont know about mac.

atleast carrara is 64-bit. how far away are we from 128-bit os?

who knows what innovations have been offered for carrara,

cant read about at it's homesite,

entire topics of information deleted there,

fuels my speculation of dodgy doings to kill off our fave apps

vwd, or even dynacreator as 2 cases in point.

silent lucidity

well the fact you could get Genesis 3 to work in Carrara and they could not be bothered or support your efforts speaks volumes of their interest in the program and selling their content. I am still an utter sucker buying more than most even though not encouraged as I just love collecting I think and maybe sadistically making stuff work or find solutions. Most just move on, DAZ studio just still has too many features lacking for me.

wendyvainity posted at 7:43PM Tue, 18 April 2017 - #4302875

well the fact you could get Genesis 3 to work in Carrara and they could not be bothered or support your efforts speaks volumes of their interest in the program and selling their content. I am still an utter sucker buying more than most even though not encouraged as I just love collecting I think and maybe sadistically making stuff work or find solutions. Most just move on, DAZ studio just still has too many features lacking for me.

Agreed on all but "making stuff work". I want to make short animations, not spend time fiddling with purchased items that have problems in Carrara. Other than the rare Carrara format product (thank you TangoAlpha, Howie, MMoir and a few others), that means Poser format, which for me works better in Carrara than in Poser. To clarify, Poser works fine, but Carrara handles Poser format items in large scenes with lots of lights, etc., much better.

I'm saddened that Daz couldn't see the potential in Carrara - it could have been as strong of a program as Cinema 4D, if they had just continued to develop it. Maybe, it just wasn't profitable enough. Who knows? Does anyone think Carrara might continue under some other publisher? Let's hope.

Artformz2 posted at 2:31PM Wed, 19 April 2017 - #4302985

I'm saddened that Daz couldn't see the potential in Carrara - it could have been as strong of a program as Cinema 4D, if they had just continued to develop it. Maybe, it just wasn't profitable enough. Who knows? Does anyone think Carrara might continue under some other publisher? Let's hope.

I know almost nothing about the market for 3D software, but I'd be surprised if a publisher picked it up. A lot of current choices to compete with - DAZ Studio, Poser, Lightwave, etc. - all with more users I'm guessing, and thus support from 3rd parties, etc. Plus I think a lot of 3D folks are interested in working in the industry some day, so want something used by studios. But I agree it would be nice if somebody picked it up.

My main problem with Carrara (besides the Genesis 3 incompatibility issue) is that its autodetect runtimes feature doesn't detect runtimes in Daz 4.9 so I had the tedious task of loading all my 25 runtimes manually, one at a time. I wish they cared enough to at least offer an update to make it compatible with their other software...

Autodetect has never been something I like to do even in DAZ studio as it finds a lot of stuff I do not wish to add that are for various reasons in a runtime structure.

It never finds stuff on my extra drives in Carrara either.

I can see how having 25 of them could be a bit of work though.

Damn I wish they cared full stop, it's such a shame, Bryce and Hexagon too.

They are sitting on some seriously awesome programs if only they were kept current.

I have never used Autodetect, I just add Poser Format Runtimes to Carrara's browser Content Tab as needed. The first one is always the Poser 7 Runtime with V4, M4, etc. (I have a recent version of poser but it has no DAZ content, I think). On a big animation project, the number of Runtimes gets pretty high, I wish there was a Search, but that's been requested for years, ain't gonna happen. At project completion, a reset clears the Content Tab for the next project, again adding the P7 Runtime first.

One thing about Carrara is, it approaches what the better known 3D apps (Cinema 4D, etc.) can do, but is much more economical to purchase. And that's a plus for those of us on a limited budget.

@ Artformz2: You must really come to grip with the fact that Carrara is dead, as dead as the dinosaurs, as dead as John Lennon, as dead as JFK.

I understand that you are a Mac user. Then why don't you give Cheeta3D a try? Feature for feature it stands head and shoulder above Carrara, and it only costs $99.-

Since you mentioned C4D, I can tell you that Cheetah3D (or C3D) is the closest you will get to C4D, at a fraction of the cost.

Ive been with carrara when it first came out and when it was Ray Dreams, personally i feel that daz should let it go, they have always tried to shed a bad light on carrara ever since they bought it from Eovia, im hoping that someone else would pick it up and make carrara the 3D software it supposed to be "user friendly" down and dirty object building tool, but it doesnt matter to me, im keeping my carrara 4.0 pro as my main tool, i have carrara higher, but i still use 4.0 even in windows 10...

Just my opinion, as i ducks and runs away to hide... :)

4.0? are you able to render to png?

So, if somebody wanted to "buy" Carrara from Daz for future new development, how much money would they want?

Kixum posted at 8:25AM Thu, 15 June 2017 - #4307517

So, if somebody wanted to "buy" Carrara from Daz for future new development, how much money would they want?

I don't think they would disclose that.