i really like the orange jumping around on the black background. the animation has very nice rhythm. i think the candle with arms is a little strange, though. still, i can't wait to see more.

i would also recommend doing the gamma correction in post. you'll just have far better control over it. that image is really looking nice. i love the detail in it. -pix

carrara 2.1 and osx 10.2.1 seem like a good combination. fixes your bug and is nice and stable. i have multiple drives and went up to 10.2.3 on one of them but found it crashed carrara a bit, so i'm sticking with 10.2.1 for now. i really recommend having a spare drive to test updates on. it is huge not having to go back and reinstall everything to downgrade the system software.

i've used c2 briefly on my g3 266 with os9.2.2 and it seemed stable, but i mainly work in 10.2.1 and that is pretty rock solid. i get a crash in the texture room every once in a while. also i found 10.2.3 to give me problems with carrara, so i'm avoiding it for now. are you sure that you're using the most recent version of carrara? should say 2.1 on the splash screen when you launch it. btw, i really don't think you should give the app less ram. 200-500MB seems like what the program wants on a normal basis (i figured this by watching the process viewer in osx while rendering)

i believe the point i was making was that the content being rendered (in this case high poly objects with transparency, glow, and refraction) can bring powerful machines to their knees. Remember the G3 didn't have to render any transparncy or refraction. hartcons, yes, macs seem to suck at 3D. i haven't tested this with other software, but they certainly get schooled in carrara. however, macs crush pc's in 2D so it all comes down to which tool you need for the job. when i get ready to mass render, i plan on getting an athlon or two. but for working on the scenes it's much nicer to be on my platform of choice.

all these guys have good suggestions, but check this out... my experience has led me to believe that in addition to modeling and rendering 3D, carrara also has a part-time hobby corrupting files. this may not be what happened with yours, but my solution to avoid working my butt off on a project only to have it corrupt is to save tons of versions of it. every time i save the file, i give it a new name (model1, model2, model3. .. you get the idea) that way even if a bunch corrupt, i have many versions to choose from. in fact, near the end of projects, i save multiple versions at a time just in case. so in your instance, i would recommend duplicating the file you're concerned about and testing it with the duplicate.

the .sit file has a document MultipassMASTER in it. this is the scene file. just add .car to the end of it and it will change the icon to carrara's file icon. for some reason, mac version of carrara won't open file with .car on the end, and i made the sit on the mac. oh sit! let me know if you have any further trouble with it. -pix

in order to create shapes on different cross sections you have to convert points on the extrusion path to cross sections. -use the pointer tool (t) to select the pink line that defines the legnth of the extrusion. -to create a cross section on the last point, click once on it, (it doesn't look like you selected it, but you did) and pull down Sections:Create from the menu. -boom! new section created. now you can click on it, and the drawin plane moves to it. you can modify it or delete it and redraw a new one. -if you want sections in the middle of the line, you can add them with the Add Point tool (+), and then create sections there. -you can also draw with the pen tool to add points to the extrusion path (provided you've already selected it). new points will be connected to the end point. so keep that in mind when beginning your object. i hope that helps. the spline modeler can kind of be a pain in the butt. i started there because i was afraid of the vertex modeler and thought splines were easier. -pix by the way, i hope everyone realizes my comment about manual reading is not a dig at anyone asking beginner questions. i totally don't mind helping with the most basic question.

usually i work in the 4 window mode (to set click the buttons immediately to the right of your scene window. the one with 4 little boxes will give you 4 panes: top, front, left, camera) you can set the different views to what ever you want. but i usually use this because i find i easier and more accurate than dragging in the camera view. i only group when i'm near the end of my scene building or when i need to duplicate multiple objects. one thing to keep in mind is your hot points (rotational points of the model that may be different from the object's center) could (i think!?) affect the bounding box of a group. other experienced users, back me up on that one or set me straight please. in general for anyone new to carrara, you also might want to give the manual an attempt, i found it to be a quick and easy read. it's actually one of the easiest manuals to get through that i've ever seen. if you can do an hour a day, you should be able to finish almost all of it in a month. it really helped my learning curve. but if you still have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. then someone like me can blab for several paragraphs and put everyone to sleep.

Oh. You mean ready-to-go lighting set-ups so that you just drop in your objects and hit render?

I'm not really sure that I understand what you're asking.

I think that SMP only works in OSX. I have the same machine at work and SMP works fine (in X).

Attached Link: http://www.geocities.com/scottspringer78/info/downloadsnowy.html

I hope that you find it helpful.

-Scott

Cool. That sound's like a great idea. Most of my techniques I learn from reading such postings from other people. So I would be honored to contribute.

That's about it. I hope that these settings are helpful.