How 'bout the interface, though? Especially the modeler- that's the one thing that drove me nuts about Carrara 1 and 2. I can do fine in a setup like MAX or Raydream, but I need all my functions where I can reach them, not squirreled away in some bizarre place. The other stuff like the crappy imports and transparency bug I can at least live with to get the better effects, but when making a scene takes twice as long as it should because you have to hunt through a menu list to make a cube, and then it does it at some wierd scaling because you can't see what you're doing...

I think I got it... thanks. Kinda sucks, but at least it should be workable now...

Used copies of Ray Dream (almost always Studio, which is all right, because it's better) are sporadically available on places like Ebay. All in all, it's almost infinitely more rewarding to use as a modeler than Carrara, but isn't always as good a rendering tool (though some effects are done better in original RDS). Personally, I recommend trying to get both and using them as a single program broken into parts, something like a cheap Lightwave. It's a pretty decent pair, and still infinitely cheaper than, say, MAX.

Ach, but it's impossible to tell how much these things are selling, except for relative to each other. It's a bit confusing, since personally I know I'd almost always rather make it myself and learn how that way than buy whatever it is, but people seem to be willing to pay $20 a month to get a spot, so there must be some people who don't agree... Ah, I dunno. Maybe I'll go back to tryin' to get people to host my stuff for free.

Yeesh... and it takes me two days to do a minute-long 600x400. Yeah, so I use 12-layer procedural texes and high-poly models- if you're doing that resolution, you'd better be, too.

First, you need about 40 crapped-out computers. Hook 'em together for a network renderer (or just take the CPUs out and try to stick them in your existing computer). Ideally, you'd get a more advanced program than Carrara (which is really more entry-level... Lightwave, MAX, and Maya are the big three after proprietary software, but their price tags range respectively from too much to more than your car to more than your car, your house, your neighbor's house, and Switzerland combined). Location is a bit of an issue, but not too big of one. Basically, get the equipment and whatever friends you have who are into CG and the like- and some kinda basic job- and more will come as you work.

The best source is tex maps online or on CD. Unless you know how to make photos seamless, I'd stick to those- CG dirt generally doesn't look right.

Ja, RDS 5.5 is basically Carrara without the "intuitive" interface (pleh) or the particle engine. You can't buy it normally now (unfortunately), but if you find an auction or something it might be handy to get- I at least find it much easier to model in than Carrara, and if you add in some of the free plugins it's got nearly the same functionality.

Not really, unless you want to manually separate each particle. 'S one of the things that really bothers me about Carrara, it doesn't seem that it'd be that much a bigger step to make a MAXlike particle engine that's genuinely useful 90% of the time...

Never tested the soft shadows successfully- I always tried to get them with GI/radiosity/whatever you care to call it, and it was a bit much for my machine. I remember the RDS ones being good but slow, I don't know if they changed it for Carrara or what... What would you use GI for if you're not using indirect lighting? That's what it IS. Do you mean having SOME glows light but others not? Then I'd recommend faking radiosity by sticking same-colored lights around the illuminators. And there's a function in "effects" to override the Aura setting for specific objects, last I checked.

Be advised, though, texes ported into Carrara seem to go funky an awful lot. I think the two programs must treat mapping and procedurals in very different ways, because it almost always takes a good bit of fiddling to get a RDS texture to look about right in Carrara. Which particularly sucks if you've got dozens of them on an old model you're trying to render with. Ugh.

In my opinion (for what it's worth), Carrara 1 wasn't, but C2 was. Carrara 2 made significant improvements over Ray Dream and most of the programs to be had for free- C1 seemed to me to have actually less functionality than either.

I'm more an engineer- I can make a model of most basic machines so that it'd work in real life, or just look cool onscreen, but I can't organic worth a corrupted copy of TrueSpace. Last time I tried, I got what looked more like a blob of molded lard shaped roughly like a person.

Aw maaan, nobody ever wants cyberpunk cruisers... That's the problem with having a specialty on stock, I guess.

"If that is so then perhaps that is where the secret lies. A smart programmer." Actually, come to think of it, there's a good bit of truth to this. The best renderer I know made his own tools, as have many companies I can think of. I think the advantage is that they're highly specialized for what they wanna do (like SPIRIT), and thus are naturally better at what they're good at than an all-purpose prog (like MAX or LightWave, or much of anything else). Also, they generally aren't what you'd call user-friendly, from what I surmise, since the only people using them are the ones who already know 'em literally from the inside out, but hey. However, there are just as many companies and individuals that use MAX, etc. as make their own software, and they're about as good. Maybe can't do quite as fancy stuff (particles on some of the custom jobs are unreal in particular), but then again, they don't have to program either.