I was just wondering about the Carrara 3 power pack advertised on the Carrara 3 website. How good is it and what does it contain that is not mentioned on the site? I heard that there is a fresnel shader, but that is not mentioned on the site. What is the anything grows like for render time? Is it good value for money? Any info or opinions appreciated thanks.

Its a great value. The best way to see what the power pack has is to take a look at: http://www.digitalcarversguild.com Whats included is: Anything grows Anything grooves Shader Ops And StarBright Take a look:)

Both Anything grows and Anything Grooves are well worth the investment IMHO. You can quickly build up very large poly counts with both plugins but I think the results are worth it. Shader Ops also has a lot of goodies but I find I don't use them as frequently as AGRO and AGRV. The fresnel shader is pretty nice though I also use the fresnel shader put out by Zmorphics.

Which brings up a related question: what do you think of the Zmorphics plugins? I'm particularly interested in the blurry reflections plugin. How does it affect rendering speed? And are you happy with the results? I've also wondered whether Eovia might add this feature to C4, but I guess that's the risk you run with any plugin.

I have used the Zmorphics fresnel shader. The results are subtle but definately have an impact. (Visually) I used the gradient shader a lot til C3 included it. I have not used blurry reflections so I can't help you there. All these these increase rendering speed somewhat: there's no free lunch! If you wish examples my gallery image "Lamp and Rake" uses Anything Grooves. "Riverside" and "Blackberry" use Anything grows. "Postcards" (drinking glass) and "Chandlery" use Zmorphics fresnel. I use a 1GHz Intel processor. HTH Ed

"I have used the Zmorphics fresnel shader. The results are subtle but definately have an impact. (Visually)" What kind of impact could they possibly have other than visually? Can you hear it? Smell it? ;-)

As opposed to render time where the effect is not so subtle.

Yeah, but subtle or not so subtle the effect/impact is still visual. It couldn't be anything else.

sailor_ed means that the effect has an impact on rendering time. 'Subtle' effect = adds :20 sec to rendering each frame 'Not so subtle' effect = adds 2 minutes to each frame

I must not be communicating well :-( So to summarize my previous posts: I think they are good plugins, buy them all.

"sailor_ed means that the effect has an impact on rendering time" Even if he did mean that, it's clearly not what he said. If he meant that he would have said: "The results are subtle but definately have an impact. (on the amount of rendering time)" rather than: The results are subtle but definately have an impact. (Visually) If he did mean rendering time then what he said makes even less sense. What he said was that the results will look different, not take longer to produce. No sailor_ed, I'm afraid you are not communicating very well at all but we won't hold it against you.

wont hold it against him?...so you mean the burning and pillaging of his village wasnt necessary?

Back to the subject at hand. I am considering getting some plug-ins my self and I am considering the Power Pack. So, my question is, are they easy to use? I downloaded the Everything Grooves plugin a while back and found it a bit confusing, but I guess I should spend a bit more time with it. I didn't go to Eric's web site to check tutorials. I guess I should have. I know that once I lay down money than I will do this. But I don't have a lot of time, between work, freelance, and a new borne, I need to get stuff that dose not have a heavy learning curve.

(Here I go again, sigh) If you get the idea of bump maps I think you will get the idea of Anything Grooves. The only learning curve I encountered while using Anything Grooves is learning how much detail you can add to a AGRV object before your system slows to a halt. Be warned that as you apporoach this point C3 will appear to lock up but if you wait long enough your computer will finally come back to life. Or to summarize: This is good stuff, buy it. It will make up for those 2 o'clock feedings.

Thanks sailor ed. The wife takes care of the 2 o'clock I am the 4:30 man. I guess I will get it then. What hardware are you running. I have a Power Mac dual 1.25 MHz. and it runs very smoothly. All this is dependent on how much ram you have too, right?. I have 1.25 GB.

I think you're well ahead of my 1.4GHz 512Mb pc. Be sure to check out www.digitalcarversguild.com for their examples.

thanks for the answers