I just stopped by to see what was going on with Carrara. I've owned from version 1 till 6, but I rarely used it past version 4. I moved to Cinema 4D several years ago (at a pretty penny)—haven't looked back since. It's a shame that Eovia sold Carrara. I loved that program, but after investing in C4D I decided I had to pick one ap and concentrate on it. C4D is a great full featured suite and far more robust but Carrara has very advanced features for the price (even does a thing or two better) but I don't think Daz does Carrara justice—it's a shame.

 If you want a low-cost poly modeler alternative to Hex (minus spline/bezier modeling), you might want to look at Silo.

g.

You probably know this already, but in addition to posting the bugs we find here so other users know about it, Eovia has a place to report bugs on their site.

Didn't think you were complaining. I'm just bored so I've been runnin' my big mouth a lot lately. Actually, I appreciate that you and anyone else posts the bugs they find. Bob from Eovia posted here recently so it seams they actually look to see what their customers say about their product. The more vocal we are when we find bugs, the more responsive the mfg can be. It helps the users and the software authors when people post their bugs. I wonder if it helps them if we post our hardware config, OS etc. stats along with the bug.

I hate coming across a bug in new software but in the words of the creepy evil program dude in the Matrix, "it is inevitable." I think the model for release in all 3D aps is a little different than other applications. Although there's a rather large 3D community it's miniscule compare to say the Adobe, or Macromedia community (now one and the same).

Not everyone has the "gumption" to take on learning these complex aps so I'm guessing the number of potential customers hits a ceiling pretty quick and is slower to grow. That means that 3D companies have to release upgrades along a pretty tight schedule because they probably rely on return customers at a higher proportion to new customers than do other kinds of aps.

Also, just the nature of what 3D aps do means they must be super, super complex under the hood. More and more they are designed to work in conjunction with other complex aps so the sync of the two leaves lots of room for mistakes.

These 2 things means that, IMHO, most 3D aps release upgrades with more bugs than other aps because they just can't financially afford to have longer release cycles to work out all the bugs. Something we just have to grin and bare and hope we don't get stuck with a situation like the Maxwell folks did.

Thanks for the clarification

I hate these kind of answers, but it really depends on what kind of things you do with C4D. If you use all of the modules to a certain level you may find Carrara a lacking. Modeling in in C4D is much much more robust, however Hexagon which works in conjunction with Cararra (around $140) can make up some of the difference. I bought Silo (similar price) which I prefer, not as many features (in it's current release, new release impending) as Hex, but for modeling single objects (especially organic) it is really easy and fun, I prefer it. The spline modeling is far superior in C4D and allows for "growth" along a spline animation that is not there in Carrara and C4D also allows a lot more tweaking controls of all parameters. Hyper NURBS is a great thing. You can't even begin to compare the particle systems. There is no soft body dynamics in Carrara Pro. Feature for feature as far as what you can achieve creatively, C4D is greatly superior because you have much, much more variables you can control. However, if you are not utilizing that level of control than you might be very, very happy with Carrara. Carrara is much easier to learn out of the box (but then again I learned it first). The two aps approach most things very differently, so if you are already use to C4D you will have a little bit of mental adjusting to do, but Carrara is still very easy. The interfaces are vastly different. Carrara has some wonderful things like the built in terrain editor, which is exceptionally cool. You have much more access to Poser through Carrara. New features like the replicator is really cool. Once you get use to the difference, I think you will be very impressed with Carrara's Materials editor. It actually uses shader trees which you don't get In C4D. Carrara's material editor allows you to blend, and layer to your hearts content it's actually quite sophisticated and comes with a lot of great built in shaders. Digital Carver's Guild offers add-ons for Carrara that are very impressive and down right cheap compared to the non-shareware plug-ins for C4D. In some ways, Carrara's material editor is actually superior in how you actually create materials, all though the control of how materials are applied to objects or groups of objects is much better in C4D. C4D's use of tags is fantastic (if you use them) no such feature exists for Carrara. However, Carrara has some built-in drag-and-drop animation behaviors that are really quite good for quickly setting up some fast but impressive canned animation. There is no such thing as expression based animation in Carrara, although there is a plug-in called "Cognito" that can do some of that type thing with much less control. I suggest you visit the "Carrara Add-Ons" page on the Eovia site and look at all that is there to see if you can add back some of the things you loose from C4D to Carrara. In some ways I actually like the renderer in Carrara better (tile based verses scan line) Carrara's net rendering is way easier to set up. The quality of special effects rendering in C4D is much better (if you need them). If you are really hard pressed for cash you can buy a new sealed version of Carrara 3 on eBay for $40 (yes Four, 0) and then upgrade to Carrara 5 Pro for $299 (assuming you don't already have a Carrara product to upgrade from) Although $340 is still a decent hunk of change, it's nothing compared to even a single C4D module. If I were you I'd go that route. If you really don't like Carrara, than by comparison, you're not out that much compared to upgrading C4D plus modules. You might want to contact Eovia to see if they plan to release a trial version any time soon. The list of differences is quite huge, some subtle, some massive. It just depends on which ones apply to your work. What kind of work do you do with C4D?

I'm thinking about buying Poser. Wasn't aware it had particles. Do they export to Carrara?

I haven't even gotten an email with links yet.

Downloaded C5 beta for Mac with pre-order. It seems promising but it is def beta. Much crashing, new vertex modeler yields no results for gordon, coons etc, objects as particle, does not work yet, freznel water shader applied crashes. Overall, it's kinda useless at this point and so far I would say the improvements in the vertex room are nice (when they work) but they are no replacement of Hexagon. This is just my first impression though. It appears that at this point After Effects export is only supported on Windows.

If you are an early adopter (I only know about mac) from my experiences I would consider this a sneak peak. It's def cool to see what it will be when it's done, but it is almost too buggy to actually use. I think it will be a really great upgrade when it's final.

If you are looking for high-end particles, more in-depth realistic soft and hard body dynamics and physics, really versatile modeling, fully animated shockwave exports, broadcast/pro implementation of all the great things you get at a bargain price with C5, you still won't be there yet -- keep looking at C4D, Maya, etc. If you want a fantastic all-in-one, affordable 3D ap that is incredibly robust for mid range work with features that encroach on the domain of aps that cost 4 or 5 times as much, C5 is king. Personally, I think the interface is beautiful. C5 actually does a few things better than the big boys. For what it costs, Maya certainly is an ugly beast to look at compared to the C5 interface for one.

From what I can tell at first look, I think most will be very pleased with this upgrade when the final version of C5 ships.

You are right about the state of 3D. In fact it is ruining me. To date I now own, Carrara 4 pro (Love it), Amapi (don't care much for it), Hexagon, Silo, Vue 4, Amorphium Pro (ahead of it's time, not up to date), and the latest and most ridiculously extravagant Cinema 4D R9.5 Studio bundle, and Macromedia Director MX2004. I am so enamored with all these toys (and now totally broke) that I don't know which one to concentrate on learning.

I have to say, been a Carrara user since v2 and bought C4D because I thought it would be the super version of C4D. Love C4D (studio) it is super powerful and fantastic. BUT. When I compare the cost of C4D with the features of Carrara per cost, unless you have the time to learn all C4D can do and into pro 3D, Carrara is still the best bang for your buck you can get. Although if you have the dough, C4D is awesome.