I am giving the demo for Carrara 4 Pro a try and thus far I feel quite comfortable with the UI. Mostly interested in C4P for the terrain, animation and sound features. I am curious though about the size of Eovia .. company wise and user base wise. I noticed that they are slow to update their web site, they still have the promo listed that ended on 30 April and they have very few tutorials and no type of gallery that I can find. Louis

I think if you look a bit harder at the Eovia site you will find your answers. Especially tutorials and access places for more tutes. Secondly, size and quality don't necessarily go together. Thirdly, in terms of Carrara, Eovia must be the top in terms of updating the App, at times the updates seemed to be every couple of weeks. Thats service to customer problem solving! Lastly, you MUST access the 3dXtract site for continuing tutorial enzymes etc. Have fun. Brian

PS On this Renderosity site go to Gallery/Carrara.RDS/ALL and also look back at all the stuff other than the last 15 days. Carrara is verrrry WOW!

Attached Link: http://www.vizualds.com

I wouldn't say they a large company, but they are a dedicated company. They have offices in the US and in Europe. They are one of the few companies that directly interacts with the user base and they do listen to suggestions. They even had a chatroom event recently where you had a question and answer session for the developers. I do find it odd they haven't updated the promotion. Probally gearing up for the release of Hexagon. OR they are extending the promotion. As for the userbase size. I'd say they have a pretty large user base. I've heard counts of in the 100,000+ range of registered Carrara users. The yahoo list has about 2500+ very active members. With anywhere from 300-1000+ posts per month. Also, there is a Eovia supported forum site in the works to be launched that from what I've heard will have a gallery, and a download section. There are also some very active plugin developers: http://www.digitalcarversguild.com http://www.inagoni.com All reasonably priced. And as the other Brian said 3dxtract is a great resource to take advantage of with its own active forum. As to whether all that meets what you are looking for thats up to you. I've been happy enough to use Carrara since its beginnings. Brian

Attached Link: http://www.eovia.com/solutions/gallery/gallery.asp

They aren't always prompt at updating their website but there is a gallery, albeit not as easy to find as it should be. The link is from the community/forum page. For what you are after, Carrara is probably the best program in its price range and its landscape capabilities now compare well with Terragen. See the landscape tutorial here http://www.eovia.com/resources/carrara_tutorials/carrara_tutorials.asp by cajomi or his gallery entries here at Renderosity. On app updates, I find the regularity sometimes irritating as I'm on dial up (and it suggests sloppy programming) but certainly Eovia do their best to address problems encountered by the users promptly.

I would say that compared to other 3D software companies, Eovia is probably on the small to medium end of the mid range in size. They have been around long enough that they seem fairly stable (if any software company other than Microsoft can be called stable). I have found that smaller companies, such a Eovia, that are actively seeking to improve their product often provide the best value for your dollar.

CS4 may not have all the "features" the the big names do, but they also don't have the marketing and sales staff overhead that the big names do (which the user pays for). The full version improvements (i.e. V2 to V3, V3 to V4) to Carrara have been very impresive, and now Carrara is on the heels of the "Pro" applications. The render engine is already comparable with the Pro applications. The shaders in CS4 are very flexible and powerfull, and IMHO hold there own compared to C4D and Lightwave (need to implement SS to keep up with the others). The spline modeler in CS is very powerful and flexible. There has also been increased plugin development since CS4 came out, and the plugins are very affordable.

The areas that need improvement are vertex modeling (althought CS4 Pro does ship with Amapi Designer, which fills in gaps in the CS4 modeler, and the new Hexagon looks like it might be the answer to fast, powerful, easy to use modeling for CS), animation needs some more work flow improvement and minor tweaks (CS4 made big strides in this area), and improved particles and physics would be a big plus. I'd like to see native cloth simulation capabilities within CS, but with Poser 5 (soon Poser6?) support through Transposer, you can get cloth simulations into CS4.

Bottom line though, if CS4 "feels" right (intuitive?), and seems to work the way you think, then it will be a good purchase. To me, that is the most important consideration when purchasing 3D software. If it does't fit your thought processes, you'll be fighting it every time you use it.

Good Luck!

Many thanks to all .. the answers you have provided are the answers I had been wanting to hear. Two software companies that I have dealt with in the past 4 or so years have all but driven me mad; so hearing how responsive Eovia is, well it makes my purchasing decision much easier. The workflow and UI feel very good to me and makes sense to my feeble mind. When Eovia updates their 'promotion' page and I see what the next offer is, I will be buying CS4 Pro. Hexagon was mentioned as a modeler, will this replace the modeler in CS4P? thanks to all, Louis

Hexagon will be a separate programme just like Amapi but "specialising" in a certain areas better. If you are into modelling particularly it should be THE special tool. Go back to the Eovia site and click on Hexagon and then click on each of the images for the movies which come on and---droooolll!

Oh yeah !! The movies do show out nicely the possibilities and the still images at the bottom were really sharp. What do you think about the Training CD offered by Eovia? Is it of the quality to make it worthwhile or would I be better off to do the various tutorials that are on the web? By the way, I registered at 3dxtract this evening. thanks, Louis

The current Eovia special sale started May 1st (get TransPoser or VectorStyle for free). The April 30th date is from the previous special which they haven't updated yet on their site (their "upgrade from another 3D app" special).

Did you download the current issue of 3dXtract? It lists whats on earlier issues-which you WILL want to get. I am a real newbee--even to computors (73yo)-and have found the Quick Tour which comes with Carrara, the Tutes in the Manual, and all the free Tutes from the Eovia site and 3dXtract, combined with the learning from the Renderosity Carrara forum and the 3dXtract forums more than enough. I'me having the fun of my life!

Get the Carrara Studio 3 Handbook. Everything covered in it will work in Carrara 4.

You might want to get the 3dxtract cd, which has the entire collection of 3dxtract ezines on it, and all their support files, so you won't have to download those either...

Hexagon question: It seems like Eovia is pushing back the date. I thought I read some time in May, but now I can't find that wording. I'm very excited to give it a try. Any idea on the price? I'm checking in every day : ), I'm such a geek. R.

Ominousplay, I'm checking my tea leaves, wait a second.....;-)

Thanks everyone for your help, I had been curious about after-market books and the such. I did download the current issue from 3dxtract and was wondering about their cd. Now I know that I should get the cd. :) I am going to order the boxed version via Element5. Yeah, I am one of those that likes to hold the box in my hand and dream. Sort of like an early Christmas. :) Anyone have an opinion of the training cd offered by Eovia? thanks, Louis

If you are brand new to Carrara, the training CD is worth it, as it walks you through the program. Which in that it does a decent job because it shows you where everything is. I didn't learn much from it, but I've been using Carrara since it first came out. As a new user, it might be a good purchase for you. Brian