Finally learning to really use Carrara, though I still think it's beaten out by its ancestor. My one question is- well, as I'm sure everyone here has noticed, Carrara's particles suck pretty badly. You can make them look like spheres, you can make them look like squares. You can make them look like blurry spheres, and kinda sorta like smoke. But is there any technique, plugin, etc. that actually makes them capable of doing what other particle engines can do? I'm particularly interested in explosion-type effects. I'm not looking for Hypervoxels quality here, but if I could make an explosion that could be easily recognized as such, I'd be pretty much set as far as tools go. Also, is there any way to keep models from going smooth when I port them from Raydream? It's a bit irritating to have to go resharpen 50 or 60 meshes when there might be an alternative...

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=985669

Sometimes doing a search on a particular topic turns up old (but still useful) threads on the subject.

Attached Link: http://www.wondertouch.com/se_info.asp

Also might want to check out particle illusion se. Sometimes it seems the best way to do things in 3D is to do them in 2D in a compositing program!