I own Amapi 5.1 just started to learn it. I have the option of upgrading to either Amapi 6.1 or Carrera 2.1 for the same price. Primarily I'll be building models for use in Poser. Any suggestion on which program to upgrade to would be appreciated. Oh yea, I'm running on a Mac, so Mac specific advice would be most welcome. thanx in advance Jon

Seems like you would get a lot more for your money with Carrara, since you already have Amapi 5.1.

Yep. The differences between Amapi 5 & 6 are minimal, but getting Carrara will give you a lot more capabilities.:)

You could also sell one copy of Amapi since you will have two full copies of 5.1, and put that towards 6.1.

From what I've read In the Poser 4 Handbook, Amapi is s nurbs modeler and therefore not good for Poser figure development. Poser doesn't like nurbs (which I think that even the Poser 5 manual mentioned) You could make props with it for Poser, but that would be the extent of it. I purchased Carrara 1 from Eovia so that I could some day (if I ever find the time), design my own 3d figures.

You could use Amapi to create, (what they tell me,) more organic shapes with its NURBS modeler, then import the models into Carrara, convert to vertex models, and then bring into Poser for ... um... posing. After that, export the files back out of Poser, import into Carrara, and use its better rendering engine. Of course, if you're doing animation, then going into Poser is useless, since you can't import Poser animation into Carrara. :< BUT, C has bones, so you can create your animations in C. :> Either way, GOOD LUCK!

Poser 5 has a great rendering engine! It produces ray traced images that look great now, much better than the old P4 engine. As for the animation, Poser does animation well. Using vertex and metaballs you can create realistic organic forms in Carrara. Setting up a poseable figure in Poser then exporting the model again to animate it doesn't make sense to me. If you have the new Poser 5 or Poser 4 with Pro Pack you can bone to your hearts content in the Set Up Room. If you don't have the afforementioned there is a text based method to convert a model into a poseable figure as well, it just takes longer.

I take issue with the "amapi is not a good poser development app". Ive made 100 posable models with amapi. See my store here for what I mean...and attached is the latest model which will also be a posable figure. anyhow, IF you are primarily interested in using the app for poser character development..amapi 6 is the thing to get. Why? Amapi 6 supports obj format. Now this does not mean it supports UV's..however, it can import and export obj models. What's the big deal about this when you can convert a 3ds in some other app to obj? Simple, Amapi 6 will export quadrangles in obj format..any other format is triangulated. Version 5 does not even offer the option for obj. Tho an argument can be made for mandatory triangulation of models, simple fact is that a model that is not triagulated is 1. smaller in file size 2. bends at a joint smoother than triangulated models however triangulated models appear smoother when a pronounced curved surface is being modeled. it is, of course, your choice in the end. But knowing what I know about poser model creation, carrara and amapi...I'd *hands down* get amapi 6 to for model developement for poser. BT

BT if Amapi doesn't support UV Mapping how do you texture your models in Poser. Poser 4 at least only supported implicit mapping. Poser 5 has the new materials room, but I'm not sure if it supports other texturing methods. Can you clarify this?

Tomsde . . . I don't own any of the Poser Series, but I do own & use Amapi 6.1, for almost all of my modeling. I find it much more intuitive - IMHO. I'm not sure about Brycetech & his texturing methods, but I use the FREE version of "UVMapper", for almost all my texturing. As I said earlier, I don't own Poser, so I don't know if a UVMapper Texture is workable in Poser, but I'm sure Brycetech could answer that for you. The image above was created in Amapi 6.1 / textured using UVMapper & PhotoShop / & rendered in another app., have a good one . . . Mark.

yep.. uvmapper is how I do the maps BT

PS: ( Forgot to mention . . . Very nice aireoplane you've created there BT!!! )

UV Mapper Pro works fine with Poser, from what I can see on the Poser Forum it's the tool of choice for texturing.

Small PS to Brycetech's excellent info above : Amapi (v. 4 and up) will export LWO, which can be converted to OBJ in Anim8or (free), and then imported into Poser 4. Poser Pro Pack and 5 will read LWO directly. Triangles can be "cured" with a detriangulation app - I have seen at least one mentioned here in the Forums, but can't remember its name, sorry.

And PS to my PS ;o) All my humble Poser freestuff here on R'osity was modeled in Amapi 4.15, and both Brycetech and I (and others) have done tutes on how to do Poser stuff in Amapi, start to finish. Amapi is as great as it is weird, and that means it's VERY great ;o)

It's a bit too complex for my tastes. I want to master Carrara 1.1 before I even try to tackle the Version 5.1 I got free with Carrara. For all you Amapi gurus, why does my cursor move slowly when I open Amapi? I'm running 1.5 Ghzt Pentium 4 with 526 megs ram and Windows XP home edition.