Sorry, I misstyped it. The correct name is Monzoom 3D. It is a German 3D software. The website is http://www.monzoom.de . The user interface is not so easy to handle as the one of Carrara. Also the shaders have less features, but since last version there also are different settings for Color, Reflection, Refraction, Bump, Glow and Highlight channels. Monzoom has a plugin interface and there are a lot of plugins available including math textures. Another new feature is a comic plugin. Carrara still gives the better results in most situations, but when I look at the big improvements in the last versions this may change some day. I use this software since the good old Amiga days. Those days the name of this software was Reflections. wolfdd

In my eyes a very bad day for Carrara... I know, Photoshop and other Adobe products have a good reputation, but Adobe = Ultra high prices! They try to make the big money out of every piece. So I think we can be prepared to see a lot of plugins for Carrara coming, but way too high priced to be affordable. Second bad fact: Carrara and Poser in different hands. As Idol mentioned, I fear the dream of Poser and Carrara being better integrated some day now is over. However the only thing we can do now, is wait and see what time will bring. I'm happy, that I did not drop my former favorite 3D program, Monozoom, completely. After a recent update it is coming very close to the possibilities of Carrara. In rendering times it allways has been faster than Carrara. wolfdd

If you are stuck in a file, you have to wait until Carrara is back to normal operation. This may take more than 1 hour on very large objects. Then switch to gouraud mode and save it. If you don't wait, Carrara will start from the beginning, every time you load the scene. By the way, if you close the scene during the slowdown, Carrara will remain slow with any other scene until you restart it. wolfdd

Arcady, I experienced several time a similar problem (see my thread 'Texture Bug in Carrara?' from March 15, 2000). The slowdown on my system (P III 500, 256 MB, Windows 2000) was not so heavy as you described it. The reaction time was about 3 - 10 seconds, depending from facet count of the object. I tried to get help here, at ONElist mailing list and Metacreations support, without success. Since then I found a solution that works for me. I tested around with a mesh with 20,000 facets and a texture map 1024 x 1024 pixels. After setting the map in the shader and returning to assemble room, Carrara slowed down. After 8 minutes the object suddenly was shown without texture and Carrara returned to its old speed. I switched the preview from 'Textured' to 'Gouraud', closed the scene and imported the object again. This time, after adding the map, there was no slowdown. I tried several objects, that made problems before, with the gouraud setting. Success every time. It seems Carrara has a problem with textures on big meshes in the preview. Without textured preview you can ship around this bug. wolfdd

I like that. Seems like you can start a new carreer, doing Sci-Fi scenes :) I would suggest to add some effect, looking the ship more moving. Is the sky done with Carrara or did you use a Bryce sky as backdrop? wolfdd

You are welcome. This upload is a small 'giving back' for all those great tips and downloads I found here myself. I enjoy it very much, to come here. wolfdd

I really like that Image. Testing with Carrara is much fun... Did you use a light cone for making the red rays visible? wolfdd

I ran into this one once, after importing a lot of objects and making a lot of changes to the shaders. Seems to me if Carraras memory space for the shaders screws up. Since then, when doing a lot of changes in shader room, from time to time I click 'Edit/Remove unused shaders'. Until today this error did not happen again. I hope it will stay like this... wolfdd

Thanks. This idea was worth a try, but there was no change. I also converted it to .OBJ, using another program. The result was the same. After i use any texture map, Carrara slows down and nothing can stop this. I have to exit Carrara and start it again to have the normal speed again. I love to work with Carrara, but this bug really bores me... wolfdd

Aeryk71, I do not point the tube lights. I create a tube, casting NO shadows(Important). The shader of the tube has no colour and white glow. I place the tubelight inside the tube, in the middle of the tube length, aligning the axis, going from top to bottom of the tubelight, with the tube. In simple figures this should look like this: ===Oo=== Then I look up the length of the tube and set the length in general properties of the tube light to the same value. So I get the impression, the tube itself is casting the light, what in my opinion is the purpose of the tube light. wolfdd

Hi Masa, Thank you very much! This solution works perfect. wolfdd

Hi Ed, thanks for your hint. I will try that. I will loose some information of the poser original, but maybe it`s a good compromise. wolfdd

Thank you for your hints. Both will be OK for me of course, but it's more work than just doing this while applying the texture. In the programs I used before, free rotating of texture maps was standard. So I could not believe that Carrara has no such option. However this and some nasty bugs I encounter sometimes, don't spoil the growing fun I have working with Carrara. The User interface of Carrara and of course Poser are the best I ever worked with. wolfdd