Terri, this is TOO funny! Not to mention cheesy! :'D. Hm... I still think the cheese-in-a-can has some intriguing possibilities... think of the headlines... "MAN ARRESTED AT JFK WHILE ATTEMPTING TO BOARD A FLIGHT TO PARIS WITH THREE CANS OF CHEDDAR CHEESE ON HIS PERSON" Ok, it's goofy, but you know, there could inherently be a 'variant' fork challenge on cheese forks? Or perhaps variations on wacky forks. You all make my life just so much more amusing. (so, anybody up to making a boolean cheese model with the metaball modeler?) --Nancy

re: post from Julian Boolean Yes, Carrara UI really is the Lexus edition of UI's. No more squinting at teenyweeny icons that keep changing on all the toolbars! Worth the upgrade, IMHO. You have all gotten me intrigued with this 15 minute fork. Sounds like fun!

I'm really impressed with the new Carrara. I cut my teeth on RDS 4.1, and really liked 5, which I've used on both my old P133 and my Mac G4/500. Carrara 1 was a major bust. However, the new Carrara has been debugged and works great. Multiple views are great. Esp. with vertex and metaball modeler. Handy preview window in texture room. Terrain modeler has very Bryce-ian feel to it, and easy to use. UI like Bryce/Poser - no more squinting at toolbars with teenyweeny icons that keep changing all the time! And free Amapi5. (If you're curious, go download the free trial version at the Eovia site.) Carrara, IMHO, is worth it.

Well, I may be in the minority, but I've been patiently awaiting the new, fixed, whatever Carrara, and hoping for some desperately needed bug fixes. Being a long time user of RayDream 4.1 and 5, I had waited for awhile before getting Carrara, and was rewarding myself with purchasing it, only to find out that literally the day after I purchased it (and spent all night oohing and ahhing), that Meta had split up, essentially skipped town, and Carrara was floatin' (and Carrara owners) in the breeze with an expensive and obviously flawed program. It took a while, but when Eovia actually took CONTROL of the future of Carrara, I knew it wouldn't be an overnight fix. The Mac Version (I have a G$/500, so I have plenty of machine to work with) has some horrible bugs, which are a major downside to otherwise beautiful software. I know all too well of crashing out when trying some complex operations, or trying to do some complex textures in the shader editor. Well, that and having problems even saving stuff..... grrrrrr..... I know there are a lot of you who feel like we got shafted, and yeah, it sure seems like Eovia was dragging its heels. But I have learned to think about this like DIA (I live in Denver) - it took MUCH longer than anticipated to get it finished, and even then there were still some bugs to sort out, but it was a lot better than leaving it where it was when it was first produced. Well, that, and I'm looking forward to the download. I never got a chance to even register my software in the first place! BTW: does anybody know if it's been optimized for the G4? Sure hope so. Nancy