I meant like the 3Ds ed8ucational discount version someone told me about.

lol, I just discovered the backroom. Right before the last post. Cool stuff, I have to make allowances since I only have 1.1 but it is still very useful.

I know it wasnt o purpoe bu I hink the smudges dd a bit of weatherng andrealism to the sign. Just an opinion.

Yeh but then my mouth will be watering too much. I recently had a few major medical problems, and Im currently unemployed as a result, so buying even version 2 is gonna be a stretch, so Ill just stick with 1.1 and RDS for now.Maybe in the next life it will be affordable.

That would be nice, then I could get rid of buggy 1.1. Is there really that big a difference between 3 and 4, or 2 and 4 for that matter? I've never gotten a good look at 3 or 4, or even 2. :)

Yeh in most ways Carrara is better than Ray Dream Studio, lighting effects a mo0re complex shader system etc, but I really wish they had not taken out the wizard modeler for skinned objects, I ifnd it much easier to work with than the free form modeler in Carrara for simple objects. If you look at most of my images, the sculpted curved elements are all done in RDS wizard skin modeler. Then I bring it into C4 to finish, light, sskin and render. I checked out 3dXtract, not bad. I think they have more here though.

I was thinking of designing a site for it, I'm currently unemployed due to some medical issues, so I have a bit of spare time. I wish SBC would give me a static IP, then I would just host at home off my network; but Ill check into it and see what I can do to get some hosting. If I can find some decent hosting I might be able to do something.

Yeh the Yahoo groups do have a lot of limitations on what you can do. No offense Ringo. Image sizes for the galleries are so small that they are almost thumbnails, and there are other limitations. It's just the way yahoo is.

Yeh Im starting to hate the shader system in Carrara. Just when I think I have a skin texture set up to wrap properly onto an element, zap, its all skewed and warped. They should have a function to export some kind of template for a skin based on the shape of a given object, either that or build in a better 2D texture painting system. Student versions are great for saving money, thats IF you're a student, us poor working slobs however, still get overcharged.

Ill check out the demo, I dont drive a mac, I custom build all my own PCs. I wonder how well it will render on an Athlon64.. :)

I've never heard of XSI. I gotta get out more. What is the interface like?

I agree, The idea of percieved value seems to get a bit overdone with some companies. Im still using C1.1 because I simply cannot afford the high cost of C3 or C4. In the old days companies used to make the product as inexpensive as possible and go for large amounts of sales. But now companies get too greedy and then wonder why the product isnt selling. I sure as heck can't plop odwn hundreds of dollars for what is essentially a hobby for me. Maybe some day the companies putting out this software will stop being so darn greedy and give the average guy on the street a chance to have some of the cool toys. Sometimes I think Capitalism is a very bad idea...

Ive never been to 3dxtract, Ill have to check it out, I take it that its url is 3dxtract.com?

Lol Who reads the manual. RDS was so simple and intuitive that you only needed it for a sort of reference to look up very advanced features. Your right about the carrara manual, I only have 1.1 and the manual is so inaccurate that its pretty useless. Again I had to learn it all from practice.

I know the CompUSA up where I used to live in Michigan used to carry RDS4 and 5 a few years back, Thats where I initially bought it. But that was back in the Metacreations hayday. Personally Maya and 3Ds may be powerful but I haven't foudn anything I have not been able to do it RDS or Carrara, and I like the interface a lot better than Maya or 3DS or Lightwave. I do like the free floating camera system in Carrara, I find it confusing working with three open windows or more most of the time like most folks do in the higher end software. And personally I dont think there is any excuse for charging what they do for those packages.