I asked this in the Carrara forum as well, so sorry for the double post. Anyhow, does anyone have real world experience doing landscapes iin BOTH applications that can give me the pros and cons of each? I an thinking of getting Vue, but if Carrara is just as good at creating results I will just invest more in Carrara. Thanks in advance.

One easy way to find out which one works best for you is to download the demo of both software and try them.

Another easy way is to look at the galleries and se what people can do with both apps.

I have used both and I find Vue's landscape scultping more intuitive and easier to use to get to the result I want. This is probably not everyone's opinion.

I like the way Vue allows you to sculpt terrains on a live 3D view (not simply on a 2D grey levels map) and how quickly you can set up materials to be influenced by environment of the terrains (orientation, altitude, slope).

You can combine manual edits with erosions effects and imported 2D altitudes maps or procedural terrains that are resolution independant.

Finally, it also depends on what you want to do with landscapes. Is it for professional use with real world elevation data ? illustration ? architecture ? hobbie ?

Quote - Another easy way is to look at the galleries and se what people can do with both apps.

Not necessarily a good guide. Last time I checked out the Carrara gallery (which admittedly was a while ago) it was stuffed with very poor pictures that clearly did not exploit the abilities of the software. In contrast, some really superb artists post in the Vue gallery here.

I didn't mean just the galleries at renderosity. Each vendor has galleries on their website as well as links to user's community and their own websites.

I have both applications, and use them in a commercial environment.  Phantast's comments on the (Renderosity) galleries are quite true -- Carrara Pro can do far better than the typical renderings posted in these galleries!  Vue is much easier to get productive with -- for pure landscape creation. Carrara has quite a steep learning curve (though I think easier than lightwave and a few others), whereas Vue is easy to get nice scenes generated in a few hours.

Mark's objective comments in the Carrara Forum were probably quite accurate.  Original content, landscape and modeling -- Carrara.
Pure landscape with imported models, and the need for lots of variety in vegetation distribution -- Vue 5 Infinte.

I find that Carrara seems to do better with indoor scenes or smaller outdoor scenes, whereas Vue shines in larger outdoor scenes.  Carraras renderer is close to that of high-end 3D packages. Also, SSS, translucency channel, displacement mapping, normal (bump) maps, etc.

Carraras volumetric clouds, and precise terrain layering and object distribution are excellent (but it looks like Vue 6 clouds will surpass Carraras?).  On the other hand, if you need to create a forest environment replete with hundreds of thousands of plants -- of differing species, nothing can beat Vue5 Infinite.

Seriously, if you can afford it, get both applications, as they actually do complement each other.

Here is an example of an excellent (in my opinion) Vue scene: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1270330

And here is an equally excellent Carrara scene: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1274175

I'm terrible for sticking to what I know. I have Carrara, and have hardly used it at all, because if I have some time I want to do work that will have immediate results, rather than spend time learning a new way of working. What cripples Carrara for me is the lack of the mini-preview. I'm so used to working with that in Bryce and Vue I have real difficulties without it.

Wow! They are both great. Thanks. I may get Vue 6 as well.

Yepp, keep an eye on Vue 6...judging from the demo pics/video it'll be a killer application with tons of goodies! :-)