I'm considering whether or not to upgrade from Carrara 1.5 to 2.0. However, I'm on a very tight budget and can't decide if it's worth it or not. I primarily use Carrara in support of work I do in Poser and Bryce, which means I'm usually just using Carrara to create models to be exported and then textured and rendered in other programs. Is the latest version of Carrara really any better at creating models? Would it allow me to more easily create characters for Poser or set pieces for Bryce? How often does it lock up and crash? Any info and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

I dont use carrara to make models, I use Amapi. Amapi 5.15 does come with carrara tho. with that in mind, you can use amapi to create any model you want...and you'd have carrara for renders if you like. The bones that allow you to animate meshes are a bit hard to work with when working with small things like fingers..they work well for larger mesh parts tho. lockups: I have lots of problems with a new model I made in it and animation...however, the carrara says the texture total is 2.5 gb..so that could be the problem..lol people that do experience problems seem to be using ATI boards..however, thats not always the case. You should download the trial and see how it behaves on your system. I have noticed some small things thus far that I like better than earlier one, but as I don't use it that much the actual +/- of carrara would just be opinion and not based upon experience. The attached images are from an animation I just made in carrara. I do like the way it blends dv and meshes together better..the lighting options and render options are an improvement for sure. BT

The only modeling tool added to version 2 is subdivision mdeling other wise modeling tools are the same. The basic difference is CS2 has bones, a global illumination renderer, subdivision modeling and bug fixes. I haven't had any problem with crashes or lockups. I'm hoping that they add some of the Amapi modeling tools to Carrara 3. Keith

Thanks for the info! I'm considering buying it, and will probably play with the free download version tomorrow. One of the other problems I have though with Carrara is the lack of documentation and tutorials on it. In my opinion, the manual for 1.5 is terrible, and Amapi didn't even come with a manual, so I've never been able to figure that program out. To this day, I'm still pulling out my old Ray Dream manuals to figure out how to model something. I've done some searching on the internet for tutorials, but haven't found much (unlike with Bryce, Poser, and ZBrush, for which I can find tons of tutorials). Mostly a few things on how to do some modeling. Nothing that covers the process of creating a scene from beginning to end (thus the reason why I'm only using Carrara to create models for use in other programs). So, does anyone know any good books on Carrara and Amapi, or know a place where I can find a lot of tutorials? I learn best with tutorials.

Have you tried the back room here at R'osity? Click on the banner above, and there are a number of tut's there as well as a "Brain trust" that has a bunch of helpful hints. Also, in the tutorials page of R'osity, there are some tut's that some of the members here have created. Since they are links to off-site pages, you would need to click on the off-site link on the tutorial home page, or follow this: http://www.renderosity.com/tutorial.ez?Sectionid=10 lists' home page has tut's as well. here's the web address http://www.chez.com/litst/eng/tutorials.htm Plus the program ships with tut's that are helpful for taking you through a few of the new features of Carrara. Good luck!

Hi Helen9, I don't use Carrara 2 for modeling, I use Amapi 6. You can find lots of tutorials for modeling in Amapi at Evoia's site, & they used to have a .PDF downloadable Amapi manual also, ( don't know if they still do or not? ). Good luck & have a good one . . . Mark.

Attached Link: http://carrarastudio.com/tutorials/

I just found another source, with very detailed tutorials. http://carrarastudio.com/tutorials/ Have fun!

Thanks! I've been poking around in Carrara on my own ever since I got it last year. I was hoping the manual would be more helpful, but that hasn't been the case since the RayDream 4 manual. The spaceship tutorials look like they'll provide good info on scene building and creating skies. Appreciate the help! Helen

I have a tutorial cd here in the store (I think it's 15 bux + shipping) that covers versions 4, 5, and 6 of amapi. it and staigerland.com are the best sources for 'under the hood' info on amapi you can find currently. :) BT

BT, if I ever get the money scraped together, I might buy the CD. Unfortunately, I can barely afford to upgrade Carrara, let alone get any of the extras that would be nice to have. Still, I'll keep it in mind. Give the resources people listed here in the thread and some digging I've done, I may finally have the info I need to go from just using Carrara as a modeller to using it for full blown scenes. It would be nice to be able to make full use of the software for once! Thanks for everybody's help. I really appreciate it! Helen

I think the new Global Illumination render option (which includes caustics) is worth the price of admission by itself. Very easy to configure and relatively quick to render and you can get some surprisingly nice results without too much effort. Radiosity in packages like Lightwave 7.5 and C4DXL7 can take all day to render plus I think the Carrara caustics look nicer than the Lightwave ones anyway. If you use the vertex modeller (personally I tend to do my modelling in C4DXL7) I think you'll also appreciate the new smoothing option. With v2 you also have the option to get VectorStyle for Flash output. Compared to Lightwave or C4D the new bones feature is very easy to use although I don't know if it has enough features yet for sophisticated character animation.

Thanks guys! I went ahead and bought Carrara 2.0 today. I'm looking forward to working with it!