I have a copy of Ray Dream Studio (5.0 or maybe 5.5?) I bought a couple of years ago on ebay for a good price. Should I work with it or is it a waste of time and totally outdated and not capable of what the latest stuff does? I have been working in Terragen and now I want to do things other than landscapes. I do not have the cash to go out and buy something like 3D StudioMax and I honestly have not looked at Carrara prices yet. Is Ray Dream a good product to use? I have a project I want to do that I would eventually like to animate, is RayDream good at that?

Zerelli,

It depends on what you want to do. Ray Dream was a pretty good low price package for it's day, you can do animations. There are even bones available from AFX, though I have heard rumors that they aren't in business anymore or certainly aren't responding to email and for the price of the bones from AFX, you can almost get the Carrara upgrade. If you are just doing simply fun hobby stuff, you can probably get by with RD. If you need to get more advanced (bones, subdivision surfaces, GI rendering, etc.) look at Carrara, you can get the upgrade from Ray Dream for $150 from pcconnection.com. Another option is start your project in RD, if you hit a wall see if Carrara will get you by that. Carrara can import Ray Dream files pretty well so you will be able to retain much of your work.

Good luck,
Eric Winemiller
Digital Carvers Guild
3D Extensions for Carrara
http://digitalcarversguild.com

I would agree with eric, and would add my own 2 cents in . If you are considering 3D Max, (@ US $3500!) then the upgrade to Carrara 2.1 is FAR more valuable @ US $150. I have been doing 'pro' level work with it, (i.e. I get paid!) for 2 years now, and I have dabbled in 3D Max as well. Max can do a number of things that Carrara can't do, but for the price, it takes a real need for me to work in the far more difficult interface of Max, when I can get things done faster, with great quality in Carrara. Just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it, it's free! ;>

Attached Link: http://home.att.net/~Karen.Crisafulli/nautilus.html

Eric's advice to give RayDream a try is good. I started with the original RayDream and use 5.5 for nearly all my modeling work. I've never been able to get into Carrara. May version 3 will hook me. See some of the things I've done Jules Verne's Nautilus and the Confederate submarine Hunely on my pages here: http://home.att.net/~Karen.Crisafulli/nautilus.html

Ok so it sounds like I will start my project with RD then. I am hoping to lead up to doing some freelance stuff someday and I hope to get my feet wet with this and earn enough to buy big toys like Maya or 3DSMax. I am planning to do some animations of a creature from a well known series of books. I won't say more because I don't know of any other projects doing it and I don't want my results to be colored by other projects. Nice work on the subs Michael! Can anyone tell me what specifically is lacking in RD 5.5? What sort of limitations should I expect so I can save myself frustration of trying to do what it won't do?

Raydream is a pretty solid package and can produce excellent results. I'm teaching classes using Carrara Studio Basics. It's basically Raydream but it's a whole heck of a lot faster (about 10 to 15 times!). It's also more powerful on the shader side of things. The cost is $99.00 and that's not too bad. If you're in school you can get it for $50.00! You probably won't lose too much ground working with Raydream because you can open up RD files in C if you upgrade later and most of the things you learn in RD are directly imposed on you in C. You have to weigh out your need for speed while judging what your pain to adjusting to a different interface might be later. I found the transition to the new interface to take a little while but it wasn't that bad. -Kix

RayDream Studio is an amazing package. Though I've ported over to Carrara, I still use RDS for a bunch of things (particularly if I need to get something done in a hurry; I'm much more familiar with its interface). That said, CS2 is remarkable; it's got pretty much everything that RDS has and adds some great features. If you're planning on doing a character / creature animation, you might consider jumping straight into Carrara because of its bones. Bones will allow you to move a model in an organic way (and they're so simple to use in Carrara's interface). Also, Carrara has UV mapper built-in, so it's more friendly for texturing creatures you'll be bending around with bones. Either program will take some time to learn. What you learn in RayDream will apply directly to Carrara when you upgrade (and I'm pretty sure you'll eventually want to upgrade), so it wouldn't be a waste of time. Of course, there are a bunch of us here who still know and love RDS, so you'll always post questions and such in this forum. This is a great place to go for help. Hope this is helpful. - Dex

Ray Dream is a great program if you can get it for a good price. The "basics" that you learn will be applicable to most 3D apps and as noted before the transition to Carrara is fairly easy (don't bother to learn keyboard shortcuts though). Michael- That Nautilus model is great. I remember seeing that from a couple years ago. I've seen some of the movie sets and scale models of the ship at Disneyland a "long" time ago (BC in fact, before computers).

Thanks for all the great replies. I look forward to pestering you all for help in the future! ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.subcommittee.com/Images4/PR_1.html

>What sort of limitations should I expect so I can save >myself frustration of trying to do what it won't do? In addition to the capabilities mentioned above these are my own complaints about RayDream that are adressed in Carrara. These are more annoyances than problems. - RayDream has a limited, quantum zoom: 2/1, 4/1, 8/1 etc. The maximum zoom of 32/1 often makes parts of the model invisible. - The RayDream reference camera is not easily changed to view at difference angles. The camera gizmo in Carrara is the one GUI control from Poser I really like. - In the free form modeller, a tool I use a lot, you can only set values numerically in the crossection drawing plane. In the other planes you can read the values but you need to move the point with the mouse. Willf- The Disney Nautilus, designed by Harper Goff, has a very strong cult following around the world. Many folk have scratch built display and radio-controlled versions. Pat Regan has built a 1/10 scale version that he can sit in (see the link).

Whoa!

Serious blast from the past! I had forgotton all about those idiosyncrosies in RD.

Two things I do miss from RD was it's depth of field, and it's soft shadows which I think are better.

Here are three of my images which are totally RD (modeling and rendering).

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=48373&Start=19&Artist=Kixum&ByArtist=Yes

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=48355&Start=19&Artist=Kixum&ByArtist=Yes

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=48350&Start=19&Artist=Kixum&ByArtist=Yes

-Kix