The fact that they are working on getting the UB versions out so fast hopefully bodes well for the futures of Hex and Carrara. I really have great hopes for both pieces of software they have soo much potential. I just bought carrara 5 and it is fantastic.

I just wanted to say a big thanks to Carl for all of this wonderful content. Very kind of him.

How about trying one of those file uploading services like yousendit? Might be less hasstle then a torrent.

Hmmm.... C5 is looking more and more tempting!

Nurbs are not dead! I think they could be on their way back with the announcement of T-Splines <- Google it! They seem to give you the power of Nurbs and SDS. As for Hexagon V Silo. I think I would prefer Silo. Hexagon has some really cool tools (that many others dont have) but what I do not like was the Amapi hang ups it has. Tools need to be validated, and sometimes what is going on is not quite clear.There is just too much interface in the way! I have not used Silo properly (only fooled with the demo) but the vids I have seen do look very cool. The topology brush looks amazing. Wings 3D is great. I think to really appreciate its beauty, you must use it hotkeyed as the right click menus do occasionally get cumbersome. I must say the most impressive thing about Modo is the slick marketing! It does look like a really cool app but the people marketing it make me thing that this thing just landed from distance outer space 2000 years from the future!

Wow. Looks like Eovia have done a great job!

Nice work. I am loving the new site design too!

I have just seen that Anything Goos plugin. It looks amazing Eric. Well done! Nice work Shonner too.

Agreed Gweb. I find the Shift key thing very annoying. I cant figure out why they did that!

I agree with Nomuse about Carrara. Eovia really did have a great thing with Version 3. It was my opinion that focusing on the animation tools for version 4 was a bit of a mistake. Anyone who is serious about animating would consider one of the higher end apps. Having having seen the new Modo toolset for version 201, and a price of about 800 dollars for an integrated modeller/UV editor/unlimited node renderer I am honestly tempted to take the jump. Many of the middle end apps (Strata, Truespace) on the market are starting to look very overpriced.

I agree about eliminating the modelling rooms! They do seem quite out dated now and supporting their old technology slows down development of more important features. Especially when Eovia has already superceeded them in other programs.

A technique I learned from my Strata days was that for area lighting, if you aim a spot light at a plane and turn up its brightness quite high, you get a decent area light. Carrara seems to be much happier with this then using the Glow channel to create an object light source. I get much less artifacting and faster renders that way. I find the renderer quite fast, and I am on an old machine so I am not sure exactly what you are rendering. I do find glass slow to render. Mabey once the new forum is up that I hear rumoured they should create a rendering section, so that we can all discuss rendering techniques and get the best out of the engine. The Strata community made great progress under after discussing things amongst each other. As for mental ray, XSI is tempting me! but I think I will hold off for now.

Toxe, apart from no SSS, which limits do you have trouble with?

Thanks guys. I might post some more models for people to mess with if anyone is interested.

http://www.planetpdf.com/developer/article.asp?ContentID=6636 Books on Java and C++ and C. http://www.planetpdf.com/free_pdf_ebooks.asp?CurrentPage=1 Free literature Thanks for the Python Link!