So that's what the sticky option is all about. I guess the marquee tool is the key to making precise selections then. I keep thinking that the vertex modeler is somewhat limited but then I discover additional tips and tricks that make it all worthwhile. The new gemini plug-in from DCG is interesting. In Lightwave it's also "t" for move but then "y" for rotate and "shift-h" for size (scale). Carrara's mnemonics make more sense.

Attached Link: http://www.maxon-computer.com/deepshade/shader/shaders/mineral/011/011.html

I think that learning a trackball is a lot like learning to drive a stickshift. Once the pain is over it's great but getting there is a challenge. I think the solution would be to make selection and movement two separate operations (and this is the way it's done in Lightwave). It's a little more work this way for the modeler but it's hard to be very precise when things are moving all over the place each time you select them! Maybe there could be a preferences switch for this so newbies could enjoy the ease of working the way it does now and pros could get more precision by having it work like Lightwave or C4D. I really enjoy working in the VM but it seems like it needs a little more work before I'd be ready to stay in Carrra and not think about doing my modelling instead in lwave or c4d (I haven't been able to keep amapi running long enough on my machine to form any opinions about it).

Attached Link: http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/products/agr/galleryframe.htm

Congrats to the winners. I liked the mood in #13. Reminded me of the "A Bug's Life" movie which I really enjoyed.

Hey, those techniques work pretty well, too. Thanks for the picture. I guess the deal with vertex modeler is that you're working at a somewhat more primitive level than you would in some other modelers but you can still get a lot done anyway. Another problem I'm having is every time I go to select something it seems like I end up moving it as well. Is the solution to only use marquee selects? Would a higher rez mouse make any difference? http://www.losthorizonsoftware.com/products/ppex.php has a tracer (although I've had a little trouble getting it working properly without crashing Carrara).

Attached Link: http://www.turbosquid.com

Thanks for the suggestions. Both methods get the desired result but I think Keith's approach leaves you with cleaner-looking polygons (subdivide creates some nasty looking ones). I still think it would be convenient to have Knife functionality in the vertex modeler but I imagine that is somewhat unlikely given the focus on Amapi and the Amapi-Carrara bridge (which sounds great but one of the big knocks on programs like Lightwave is the separation into two programs so in some ways this is like a step backwards). Personally I think there's still a lot of mileage to be gained by adding functionality to both the spline and vertex modelers inside Carrara as well and hopefully the folks at Eovia agree!

One thing I notice in Illustrator is that my points only have one handle, not two (but not sure what that means or even how to change it). I created my shape by laying down a circle, stretching it 50% in one direction and then deleting 3/4's of the circle.

Attached Link: http://www.hcstudios.com/carrara/continents.zip

Budget permitting you might consider getting the low-end eMac instead of an accelerator card. I've been very happy with my eMac (superdrive version) so far (plus it makes a great little office stereo).

Not sure if this is what you're after but I find that on some (but not all) of the ui elements I need to have the Alt key down (at least on the pc) in order to be able to drag them around. Also you can use the Ctrl key to make certain ui elements run horizontal rather than vertical (or vice-versa).

Worst-case you could try trashing the Carrara preferences file.

You might want to check to see if you have some extraneous keyframes.

I've had branded PCs (my HP exhibited all sorts of bizarre behavior and the Gateway wasn't very reliable either including one time when the motherboard went down and I couldn't even get win98se to install on a compaq I tried out recently because they use a non-standard motherboard) that were seriously unstable as well. I think a lot of the problem might be win98 (with its severe USER and GDI resource constraints) although I haven't seen that Carrara is any more stable under win2k (surprisingly) or maybe it's the fact that I'm running a netbeui network. Or maybe Athlon chips suck contrary to popular belief (we've been running Athlon chips for years in our pcs instead of pentiums because of the cost savings and hoping that they are 100% compatible). I can't use XP just yet because it won't work properly with my existing netbeui network (it can't see the win2k fileserver for some reason even after I install netbeui by hand off the install cd). I also don't like the way XP appears to force you to use one machine as the bottleneck (er, gateway) to the internet; I don't want each machine dependent on the gateway machine's availability in order to reach the internet. I've had lots of other problems with pcs over the years like incompatibilities with various firewire cards (with one card my pc wouldn't shut down it would just keep on rebooting forever until I pulled the power plug!) and video cards (it seems like I can either get Lightwave behaving properly or Carrara but never both at the same time using the same video card and drivers!) and on and on and on and I just don't recall ever having problems like that with a Mac. I can hardly recall a weekend in the last 9 years that I haven't spent at least a little time working on the PCs (meanwhile the eMac keeps chugging along unattended). If macs weren't so darn slow and expensive and our fileserver wasn't pc-based (and my partner was willing to switch) I'd seriously consider going mostly mac for our little shop. Are you XP users (and especially the Athlon ones) out there able to run all day and do lots of work with lots of different apps without rebooting? That would be a nice change although at least the newer machines reboot fairly quickly!