I'm a Carrara newbee, I just got my copy of Carrara 1.1 a few months ago, along with Carrara for Dummie and The Carrara 1 Bible. I've been playing around with it, but have yet to master it's modelers and shaders. I'm more acquainted with Poser 4 and Vue 4. My question is do you guys think I should learn Carrara 1.1 and then upgrade, or is Carrara 2 so much better that I should upgrade right away? Are there significant enough improvements that I shouldn't bother to learn 1? My main interest is creating figures in models to import the other 2 afforementioned apllications. I'd like to create my own poseable figures, but have found the models included with Carrara 1 a challenge to manipulate. Would the bones in the new app. make that much easier? You guys have been playing with the new goods, let me know what you think.

Hi, My guess on this would be to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. So I would upgrade... ;-) Especially upgrade if you are a mac user, as 2.0 gives you a snappier application uder 9 and X. And the fact you mentioned charachter creation, you really want 2.0 with its bones feature, a must for charachter animation, manipulation. The good news is that even if you do decide to wait, what you learn in 1.1 is beneficial and nearly the same as 2.0 as the interface and spline/vertex modelers are pretty mutch the same. So Carrara 1 for dummies and Carrara 1 Bible are still great books for 2 as well. Regards, Paul

Well PAGZone couldn't have covered it a whole lot better than what I was thinking when I read your questions. Bottom line is this. Poseable characters = Bones Bones = CS2.0 Therefore, upgrade. And to re-emphasize, I'll go out on a limb a teensy bit on this one but I don't think there's ANYTHING in CS1.1 that you learn that won't be in CS2.0. While we're fussing around with all the new stuff, ALL the old stuff is there (VERY COOL!). There will be a patch if you need it eventually. Eovia fixed a whole TON of bugs in the Metacreations version so they ARE capable of doing that and while the bugs are annoying, they are tolerable (so far). You're going to want to upgrade eventually. Might as well do it now. I really can't think of a decent reason why you wouldn't want to. Price might be a reason but I have no way to guess how long you'd have to wait to get a better deal. -Kix

Don't forget that 1.1 took away physics, and 2.0 has it back again!!! ken BTW Kix, almost finished with the tuto. Will let you preview when complete. K

How about the stability of C2 on a mac? I know there is already a thread on stability issues but the responses so far are PC only so, although I did post my question there, I though I would repeat it here. There seem to be a lot of good things in C2, but I would really like to know how well it runs on a mac compared to C1. Does it run faster, smoother, better, worse, do you still need to create a stripped down extension set to avoid slow-downs, etc, etc. Oh and by the way Im still using OS 9. :) Cheers, Max

I would like to know this too. Although I already bit the bullet and my copy should be in my hands any day, I am still very anxious to see if Carrara 2.0 is behaving well under OS X. Any OS X users that have already gotten there copy have any experiences to shear?

By the way Kix, I love the expressions.

Hi Max, I'm running C2 on a OSX with no problems noted yet. I have gotten an occasional program crash when opening files created in C1 directly but it hasn't been consistent or compromised the files in any way. Opening Carrara first and then opening the C1 files seems to be the work-around. Mac dual processor capability has been restored to C2 so if you're running a dual system it's a must-have upgrade. Additionally, if you're considering moving to OSX, the great advantage is multithreading/multitasking. Starting a render in Carrara and then opeining other programs and working on them during the render has been a great workflow enhancer here. Mark

Thanks Mark I guess I should be very happy then that I purchased the upgrade. I ordered my copy by ground so the donkey should be arriving any day soon.

The burro just arived, I should see for my self just how good/bad this are.

Be sure to let us know how it goes. Oh and is anybody out there still using OS 9 on a measly single-processor mac (like me)? :) Cheers, Max

I am using a single-processor, but it's a G-4 400 and I am running OS X. After getting used to OS X, 9 seems antiquated and unstable. I can't stress how much better OS X is in every respect, except drivers. I still need scanner drivers for X. But I am using 9.2.2 here at work. I am not sure if I will install Carrara here at work. I probably get in trouble cuz my work wouldn't get done. :)

Tomsde- I havn't upgraded yet but it sounds like you could be better off with V2 and its' Bones feature. Carrara does a better job for rendering then your other options so I'd consider bringing your Vue backrounds & Poser models into Carrara to render. I though I saw somewhere that some people are working on Carrara Bones for Poser characters (Ringo mabey). Max- I'm still on my PowerBook with OS 9.1, I did swap out my HD for an IBM 30gig Travelstar to "get ready" for OSX but without a G4 chip I'm in no big hurry. May end up waiting 'til the next tower models come out & then buy one of last years models at reduced price.

Since you guys have maybe found out for yourselves how good it runs on Mac.... Well in case you have not: Carrara 2 runs freakin awesome on Mac, period. It is faster, much more stable, and overall better then C1.x on Mac. Bottom line If you use a Mac, you absolutley must upgrade to C2. Later, Paul

I have only used the software for a couple of hours and the software does seem snappier. But it did crash on me twice doing simple stuff like applying shaders to a model. The Open GL problems on the PC side seems to have skipped the Mac. I also tried to reproduce the bug with the particle emitter and it seems to be working too. Some thing that has me very excited is Amapi, it seems like a very powerful tool. In conclusion although it is not as stable as Photoshop, I would still recommend the upgrade.

Cristian

I agree. Upgrade, upgrade, upgrade! I'm running on a dual-1Ghz, and a project I just finished, (that needed DP support, character animation, indirect lighting, AND caustics!) I re-ran one section just to see how faster it was: C1.1 on 9.4 - 27 sec animation with 8 lights, EVERY object reflective, spinning, motion blur, multi-level transparency, and DOF - 54 hours 47 minutes! C2 on OSX - same settings - 26 hours 15 minutes! Worth every damn penny! Too bad it didn't arrive BEFORE I had to finish that project. I'm gonna re-do it (the "Director's Cut") and I'll report on how the bones do.

I'm a PC user, but I am leaning towards the upgrade. I have a 1.5 Ghz Pentium 4 processor, 526 meg ram and am running Window's '98 second edition. The open gl problems concern me because I have a Nvidia GE Force 2 video card, which has had some problems with conflicts with Vue 4 (which no on has been able to resolve yet in spirte of many patches). But if Carrara 2.0 is like 1.1, then I can use other video settings besides open gl, so I guess that won't be a problem. The lighting in Poser stinks and it doesn't do particles or background scenery well. When I have imported Poser figures into Carrara in the past, though the textures haven't looked as realistic. Any tricks to this? Thanks, Tom