Attached Link: Is it Carrara or Raydream what I need ?

I am new to 3D designing and therefore I would like to ask you, the experts, what is best to do. I bought Poser 4 and Bryce 4 a week ago (what a timing with all these take-overs), if I want to make models/props myself should I either take Raydream or Carrara ? I am especially interested in which program has the best import/export-utilities for Bryce and Poser.

If I were you I would buy Carrara. After MetaCreations completes the sale of Carrara to Adobe RayDream will be an orphan with out any manufacturers support or any upgrade path. Also Carrara renderer is fantastic.

Go with Carrara as Keithw said. Same reasons Keith pointed out. Nice web site. I like the We the Gods link ;) Clint

Ditto, Carrera.

Carrara has a faster render engine and better shaders. It is faster to "get up & running" with it then RDS (less features/options/user control = easier). The big advantage is Adobe and their proven commimtment to the graphics arts community.

Lessee RayDream is dead. Metacreations put it to rest with Carrara and it wasn't even sold to anyone. Carrara has an unknown future. We still don't know what Adobe plans for it. My biggest hope: Adobe owns the graphic design community. They're trying to own the web community but facing competition from Macromedia which is slowly gaining ground on them in some areas, has them beat in others, and is slipping in yet others. They bought Carrara to 'beat Macromedia' to the punch for online 3D. Carrara will end up being an effort to marry the Graphic design, 3D, and web communities. It'll end up with a vector renderor like that in swift3D for doing Flash work. One tailored most likely to work with Adobe's Livemotion Flash editor. My worst fear: Very similar to the above. But they bought it only because they had to to get exclusive rights on making a metastream plugin for livemotion and/or illustrator. Possibly they wanted it's ray tracer to adopt it over to vector renders for livemotion as well... the rest of it will disapear. We don't know which yet. Carrara likely has either a very strong future or no future at all. We'll just have to wait on Adobe. But as for a choice between it and Ray Dream; well, RD's already gone out to pasture.

It seems that one of the great advantages of Carrara is that it gives a great many options at a reasonable price. Some people are inclined to criticize it in comparison to a software such as 3D studio Max or Lightwave, but for a package that costs less than $500 dollars retail, it is really quite versatile. I do hope that Adobe does not lose sight of this, though I have faith insofar as I have been pleased with most of their products.

Put your self out of your mysery. Save you money and buy a copy of NewTek's LightWave! I'm so sick and tired of hearing about Metacreations! Good by! Thanks for the head start! I started my carrer with Metacreations... but when I heard they were selling off their products, I couldn't buy LightWave fast enough. Save Bryce and Poser, they are great for making .LWO (LightWaveObjects) files!

How silly, someone who is tired of hearing about MetaCreations hanging out in the RayDream/Carrara Forum :) Color me confused!

Kol, what can I say, I love to rant!

That's Cool! May the Force be With You!