I hate to beat a dead horse, but... I am stumped which to buy. Rds or Carrera? I have a G3/266 with 198 ram. I love my poser 3 and bryce 3d and my ray dream 3d. I am impressed with the long list of features offered by both packages. I am a bit concerned with the Mac problems I am hearing about concerning the bugs with carrera, yet that interface I've come to enjoy in poser and bryce and found in carrera is a plus. Am I wrong in assuming that RDS is on the way out??? well sorry for whining. any help thankfully accepted. JIM

Hi Jim, Well thats a tough one. I have seen a lot of MAC issues with Carrara. Im on a PC and it runs pretty well, so far. (Carrara) I love RDS 5.x. I still use it more than Carrara - I guess thats due to the fact that I am much faster with RDS than Carrara. Since Carrara is so new I havent had time to really work with it. If you are doing professional level work or development carrara might be a problem since it is a little buggy. Thats a tough call. Since your on the MAC platform I'm not sure what to tell you. If you were on a PC I would recommend getting Carrara.. We have some MAC users here at the forum, Im sure they will let you know more than I can about the MAC problems. RDS is on its way out, to the best of my knowledge. Carrara is suppose to be the replacement for RDS. I've also heard that MC will be keeping Carrara in its product line. Well, enough rambling .. Lets see what the MAC users have to say.. Regards, Clint

I'd suggest Carrara, but that's because I'm used to using Infini-D (which has primarily a Mac audience). The main advantage to me is that Carrara will allow me to open Infini-D files and export them as 3ds or obj items.

I plan on sticking with RDS 5.5 until I see if MC is going to support the MAC version of Cararra, not just say they are. Been using it on G3/233 desktop with 288 mg ram & havn't had any trouble except in the mesh form modler which is a cross-platform problem. RDS 5.5 is a Big improvment over RDS3D, many more features and much faster renders. Don't think there are that many new feaures in cararra. I don't consider the UI a feature, it's an annoyance. I'd preferr to have other apps running and visible on the desktop without switching. Quite often I like to have another graphics program open with referrence material.

I've been using Carrara on a G3/266 (at home) and a G4/450 (at work) since just before Christmas. It does have a few bugs, but none of them are the kind that make it unusable; they're just annoyances that I got into the habit of working around pretty quickly. As far as features go, it's virtually identical to RDS 5.5. Despite the name change, it's really RDS 6.0, with a funkier interface; if you know Ray Dream, you'll know Carrara in about an hour. The interface, while it's a little heavy-handed in the graphic department, really is a work of art; the multiple "rooms" of the interface really do create a smooth and efficient workflow. For the 15-20 projects I've completed in Carrara so far, I've found myself finishing them in about half the time they took in Ray Dream -- not because of the speed of the renderer, although that's faster too, but because the workflow is so much more efficient.

Just an overview from my quick first looks (Windows)- Some Carrara pluses: o The hierarchy window is much easier to read than RD o Magnification is much more versatile than RD's binary 2,4,8,etc. o Easy view changes for top/left/front, etc. Some Carrara minuses: o Some of the screen is uselessly tied up with pretty gizmos o The font interface is ridiculously slow if you many fonts installed -Michael