Hi, My C2 came today and I wanted to share some first impressions after playing around with it for a couple hours. First off this is more of a progam impression and not a review of the whole feature set... ;-) I installed this on Mac OS X 10.1.5. The cd's are dual platform, though, and there are seperate installers for both Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, and Windows. (Cool now I can load it on my IBM laptop for when I am on the road!) The install was flawless under X and very quick on my system (G4 dual 450, 1 GB ram, 70GB HD, Rage128Pro Video). Starting the app seemed really quick. I viewed some of the new Quick tours for Bones and they are now done with Viewlet Builder 3 (Where is the free creator for 3? I'm not spending $900 for the full version!) which uses Flash instead of Java. Much better there, but who cares about that? ;-) I did find it interesting that there were a few grammar mistakes that were quite funny. Here is a quote from the quick tour start page: "The Carrara Studio QuickTour is splitted in two section. The section 1 will teach you everything you needs to be productive in Carrara Studio." Hehe, Splitted? Needs to be productive?? But they spent their time on the program and that is the important part! On to the program - It runs awesome under X. Not only is it faster, but more stable too, so far anyway. There are a few glitches with the mouse though. Like when you use one of the tracking controls the mouse arrow jumps all over the place, but when you stop using the control (on the ball, not on the working box) the arrow goes back to whichever track control you were on. Also there is a bit of a delay when dragging things around. These are quite annoying and I hope Eovia fixes them, and I am sure they will. OpenGL - I first used the Software renderer in the interactive settings (the default) and it felt much like C1 when rotating, scrolling, moving etc... I then switched to OpenGL and WOW what a huge difference, it's like someone turned on the turbo charger, MAJOR speed boost over 1. I can rotate and zoom in on, even large objects, very fast and in real-time or better! C2 leaves C1 in the dust here! Sky - The sky changes are much welcome and so much nicer then 1 with a bit more control. The cloud layering is really cool. It is no Bryce or Vue though, but it doesn't need to be. Terrain - Again a major improvement with more control and without that annoying save dialog box that 1 has. Again not a Bryce, but not meant to be. Rendering - With this version, Eovia has given us Dual Processor owners a MAJOR speed boost! For the first time on the Mac version, (v1.x did not have this, even though Windows did.) we get SMP support. Wow, now my renders use both processors. Folks this makes rendering so much faster it is incredible. Not quite twice as fast but heck the OS has to use some CPU cycles. I rendered a test image from 1.1 that use to render in about a minute. Using the same settings in 2, it rendered in 30 seconds with SMP enabled. (OS9 users take note: SMP is only supported in X.) I then switched to GI renderer and it rendered in about 10 seconds, but it did not look as nice as Hybrid did. Need to tweak the settings a bit first, like AA, as it defaults to Good in Hybrid, but Fast in GI. Summary - I know this message is long winded, but today is a milestone for OSX and all Carrara users, even you Windows people ;-) as I can finally say goodbye to OS 9, GOODBYE! Bottom line is that this upgrade is worth every penny, even if only for OSX and SMP support. Add that to all the new features and this is one major upgrade. Now where did my son hide the phone so I can call in sick to work tomorrow! ;-) Enjoy Your C2, Paul

Hello, some of the grammer and typos in the new viewlett tutorial are my mistakes. I created the tutorials. Eovia was going to run a spell checker on them but i guess some of the little critters were not corrected. Anyways I hope you find the new tutorials useful Ringo Monfort

Oops.. hehe Sorry, didnt mean to slam ya there ;-) Yes indeed the quicktours are great. Especially liked the Bones ones... Paul

No problem, just wish I could spell better. :-) Ringo

hey PAGzone... is your computer an AGP video? I have a card that may help some of your video probs.... I may have a deal for you? (or anyone else) I have two APG cards... Nividia MX2 and the ATI Radeon 32 meg ( same basic thing as the 7200 they sell now?) i used to switch back and forth between the two to decide which i want... like them both but i think the NiVidia is slightly better for most things (Unreal tournament for one)... except output to TV.. so i think i'll use the Radeon since i do some output to VCR... anyway... blla blaa blaa.. to the point... the company i was working for decided to stop paying the empoyees for some three weeks...ssooooo i quit... and need $$$$$$$ and am going to sell the extra card... cheap!!... let me know if you are interested... I WANT CARRARA 2 :( anyone want to give to a poor hard working person that got screwed over ? LOLOLOLOLOL thanks for the review.... looking forward to the program even more now

thomllama, Hi, My system is AGP, but it is the older AGP that only supports up to 2x. The newer systems that can use the nVidia cards can support upto 4x. Apple's nVidia cards only work in 4x AGP based systems. So I can't use that card. I am actually thinking about updating to the 8500 with 64MB RAM as this is ideal for my use and for games ;-). L8R, Paul

yaa games... >:) we like games.... LOL ya i think you are right there.. someone said that you the 4x work with the 2x but you just don't get the speed above what your bus delivers, not sure if this is true or not... I know the radeon will do either. anyway... the 8500 is way cool... have played on one.... the duel monitor support is nice too, Though you only get 32 meg per monitor.