I've had RDS5 for some time now, I've been studying the manual and working on learning to make the most of what it has to offer. I'm thinking of upgrading to Carrara when version 2 comes out in the fall. I'm having second thoughts about waiting to upgrade, because after I put the time into learning RDS5, I don't know how well what I've learned will carry over to Carrara. If I learn RDS first, will the knowledge carry over to Carrara easily, or will I have to pretty much start from square one with Carrara? If that's the case, I'd rather not invest so much time in learning RDS5 and just upgrade now. Any suggestions?

What you learn in RDS will carry over to Carrara very nicely. Basically Carrara is RDS 5.5 with a different interface, a better, faster renderer, and a better shader creator. I had no trouble switching over to Carrara. I like the Carrara's interface much better than RDS's. For me Carrara is much more intuitive. Keith

A bit of caution: From what I've heard, there will be no upgrade path from RDS to Carrara 2. I got RDS 4 (a legit copy cost me $20 on E-bay) just to get the upgrade to Carrara Studio 1.1 myself. Not sure if I will upgrade to 2 yet; I'm still learning 1.1, and it looks like it has more than I could ever want right now :) From what little I'd learned in RDS 4, things carry over nicely (though they do look rather different... dunno about RDS5, though.) HTH a little, /P

oh no!!! Is what Penguinisto said true. I've been planning to upgrade RDS 5.5 to C 2. OH NO!!!

I'm not sure... I'd heard about it in this forum; but I wouldn't be suprised to see it happen. They may decide to have an upgrade price from 5.5 but refuse earlier versions as well. I'd e-mail 'em just to be sure, though. /P

Attached Link: http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y02Y0876095Y9044323/qid=1017791657/sr=1-1/102-4

yes, i've also heard that when cararra 2 comes out
there will no longer be upgrade offers from rds and
infini-d. so i would buy now.

the price to upgrade now is around $150. when cararra
2 comes out it will probably also cost about $150 to
upgrade from version 1.

therefore, your total cost is around $300, which is still
cheaper than having to buy version 2 for the full price
($400). did all that make sense?

anyway, as far as how easy it is to pick up cararra? i've
heard that it is fairly similar to rds in theory. yes it has a
different interface, but you'll adjust quickly.

i got the program in december. i had done very very
little 3-D art before owning cararra. i sat down and read
the manual cover to cover trying everything that it
covered. it is an easy to read manual and it only took
about a month to finish.

if you figure that i didn't know what i was doing when i
began, and take a look at what i'm doing now, i think it
proves that cararra is easy to learn.

also, i would recommend the book "digital lighting and
rendering" by jeremy birn. it bridged the gap between
learning the software and learning good lighting
principles. the book is written to platform and software
inspecific, so it will benefit users of any software
package. see the attached link to get the book from
amazon.

ok i'm off my soap box. sorry that i rambled. i hope that
some of it was useful.

-scott

I found this message from Antoine Clappier (posted by litst) about upgrading from Ray Dream to Carrara. "Speaking of upgrades, I advise the Ray Dream and Infini-D users to upgrade now! At some point during 2002, Eovia will release Carrara Studio 2. At that moment, we will not be able to maintain the exceptional upgrade price for the Ray Dream and Infini-D users. The reason is that there will be a two versions difference between Ray Dream or Infini-D and Carrara Studio 2." The full message can be read at http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=551240 BTW I agree with pixelicious regarding "Digital Lighting & Rendering. "Digital Texturing & Painting" is also very good. I hear the whole "Digital" series from New Riders is good. Keith

Attached Link: http://www.publishingperfection.com/defaultNE.asp?keyword=&mfgid=EVA&sku=

Regarding the upgrade from Publishing Perfection, it isn't really spelled out what the upgrade applies to. The price is suspiciously close to what Eovia charge for upgrading from MetaCreations version of Carrara to Carrara Studio from Eovia. RDS may or may not be eligible from Eovia's point of view. Just thought I'd point that out.

Just got my upgrade from RDS 5 to Carrara Studio last Friday (from Eovia). It cost me about $170 with shipping but I'm mostly pleased. One thing I did notice though, while working through some poser clothes, has anyone else noticed a "memory leak"? THe longer I worked the longer it took for each operation, and man was my hard drive rattling! I found that shutting it down and restarting every couple of hours brought the speed back up. Is this common or do I have something wrong? Oh I'm using a P2 450, 256 meg ram, 20 gig drive partitioned into 4 equal, smaller drives. mike