sfdex is right about the content cd having a chain link fence. It's under home4.

I'm curious. Is everyone here using macs? Are wintel users having the same amount of problems? I'm just a hobbiest, so I'm not that serious but, I'm less than impressed with Carrara's ease of use or stability compared to RDS. I liked RDS's UI much better that all those "work windows". Switching back and forth is not producive for me. I resisted Carrara till Eovia it took over. I'm going to wait and see for Carrara 2.

Have you tried the 3D option for 3D Aura? Or the brightness slider on the glow channel or use a darker color for your glow?

Sonic, Sound, one of those. It's by Sonic Foundry. I got my copy with my Sound Blaster, but it can be bought I think at software outlets. There are two versions, a $50 and $300 version for pros. I think Acid is around $200 or $300. I'm sure there are all kinds of products that will add sound to an animation. It all depends on what you need vs what you will spend. For adding sounds and music, I like SOUND FORGE.

I highly recommend Sonic Forge. The $50 version. It's a very good sound editor with avi and sound combining ability. Wayyyy cheaper than Permire! But not nearly as powerful, but for adding music, sound effects and the price, it's great!

This is one of the better options I have found in Carrara. In the texture window, see the three options for the bitmap? It defaults to sampled, the most blurry one. Try equal area table or gaussian(sp?) options. This is especilly good for bitmaps with regular pattern features (i.e windows on a skyscraper). It keeps the bitmap from forming the op-art like wave patterning and keeps it crisp. Also a larger bit map will be less blurry than a smaller one. Also try "best" oversampling in the render. vhigh

I was working on a project in CS with spotlights and I was trying to get the filters to work. Only the light cone seems to work. I had to use blubs to get the other lens effects i.e. Cross flare or lens flare. This too seems not to work. The book says any visable light source can use the filters but this does not seem to be true. My render was disabling more than usual too.(Please See Disabled Render above). As usual, I bitch that RDS worked just fine and that Carrara is just a repackaging of RDS in a new goofy GUI which I don't care for. I'm hoping Eovia will iron it all out for not too much more money. I hope everyone's expectations come true for CS 2.

Yes, that's the way to put different pictures on a cube. I tested my solution and it's tiling 3 for horizontal and 4 for vertical to get the above effect.

sorry, I should test my solutions before submitting them. I don't have Carrara with me but, try tiling now. 4 horizontal and 2 or 3 vertically. I'm not this will work but try variations of this i.e. 2 horz and 4 vert. The idea is to repete it four times for the sides and 2 for the top and bottom. I hope this works and again I'm sorry for giving untested advice.

Use the flat mapping or box(RDS option then click the all sides option. That should do it.

Something sounds funky. I've never heard or seen anything saying Boolean is extra. I have RDS 5.5 and never got a boolean serial number request. It's part of RDS, not an extra plugin. You should be able to use the boolean without any message of wanting a number. I don't have RDS or the disks with me, but I would look for a number on the CD. If you can't find one, then try reinstall. Weird!

I will agree with you in feeling a little ripped off. I had trouble in the beginning with RDS locking up and crashing allot. I ran Norton disk utilities several times and things stabilized for some reason. I bought RDS 5.1 for $299 and 4-Elements for $99. Then RDS 5.5 comes out which I paid $100with 4-E included. I felt I paid for 4-E twice. When I got my RDS 5.5 upgrade, Metacreations was pushing Carrara for another 1 or 2 hundred dollars. My rule is never buying version 1 of anything. Youre asking for trouble. I wasnt totally happy with the RDS upgrade ether. Some function was lost between versions. Then Metacreations dies and sells off everything. Cheese! I gave up on RDS's future and started to consider getting 3dStudio Max. Then I found this site with a RDS/Cararra forum and found that Eovia is selling Carrara Studio with 100-bug fixes, Amapi etc. for a RDS upgrade price of $149. Everyone was raving over Carrara so I bit for it and so far I'm not very happy with Carrara. I'm having transfer pains between the RDS GUI and Carrara's. I finding discrepancies in quality of some of the functions. I felt I bought RDS again in a new Mac package that is less than intuitive for this PC user. But as everyone says, for the price RDS is worth it. Too bad it's gone. Ive tried 3D Max, and it seemed like RDS with more bells and whistles. But the price! In Carrara, I fear I bought a lemon that will take more $upgrades to sweeten or disappear all together for another repackaging of old rope. I like RDS and for the price it's great! I think you should try using it a little longer. Buy Carrara if you cant afford a better program.