I'm switching to Carrara by eovia: Carrara 4 pro

It's everything brcye never had, and it was based off of bryce so the interface is similar.

It has the same terrain editor (although it is much more functional in carrara as they have updated it)
It has Global illumination and radiosity.
It renders FAST.
It models.
It has better tree creation abilties than bryce.
It doesn't suck on the mac.
It doesn't use one of my CPU's when idling.
It is not buggy.
It is being worked on.
It is $119 after academic discount: Carrara Academic
It is endorsed by madmax!

Here is my first render afer using the program for 25 minutes total:

It is a mock-up of my upcoming photography show. Render time was 7 minutes with fairly high quality radiosity, soft shadows, and 9 lights. I'm impressed.
It also has caustics, hdri support, tube lights (flourescents), global illumination, volumetric skies, metaballs, poser import, inverse kinematic character animation, and plugin support with cool plugins like building creators and hair/fur generators.

Here's the free 30-day trail version: Carrara Trial

I am so sad to leave bryce as I have used it since version 3 back in 1998, but it's just not meeting my needs. Especially with Daz's comments about future Mac improvements, the time as come to let a good thing come to an end, and replace it with a better thing. I won't be buying it until next september as this summer I will be working in the mountain with no computers.

Here are some screenshots:

Carrara premade scene wizard

Carrara Main Interface

Carrara Terrain lab, layer based!

Carrara render window, 6 minutes for this render!!!

Who's with me?

Message edited on: 04/29/2005 22:16