I have Carrara 5 Pro. It runs well enough for my current needs. But I have noticed that when I attempt to render something, it "miss-renders" part of the objects when using it on an iMac core2duo. The same file works just fine on a G5.

What about Carrara 6. Does it have issues running under Leopard and Intel Macs?

If 6 fixes the issue, then it's settled, I will upgrade immediately.

 Are you using the Universal Binary 5.1Pro?

 I believe so. It renders super fast and it works pretty flawlessly. It's just the rendering issue. It almost like it take a small patch and decides to render it wrong or something. I think if I select the application on a finder window and check Get Info under General, It should state it, right?

I am not currently in front of that Mac, but I will be in about 15 minutes. I will check.

 Mark,
It is the UB version. I move the same exact file to the iMac and in a portion of the rendering, it places arbitrary pixels. The funny thing is that it always places them in the same exact portion of the model, but not in every instance of it. In other words I have a shape that is repeated 3 times on the image, it miss-renders on two of them and this only happens exclusively when I render on the Intel Mac. Every other aspect about the software seems to work very well. On a G5 it works flawlessly.

What hardware are you running Carrara 6 on? I am getting a MacPro later this year and I would like to know if Carrara runs well on it.

 C6 has been running well on PPC and MacIntel boxes. I haven't encountered what you're describing so it's a bit of mystery to me. :-/

 I will post a comparison between both Intel and PPC renders to illustrate the issue. It's definitely a render bug, because the only variable is the hardware being used. Again, I am using Carrara 5.1 Pro, not 6.

 This is what I am talking about.

 I know that there is an upcoming fix for Macintel multi processor issues but I don't know if this is one of the symptoms. I'd encourage you to pop a bug report over to them from this link. I know that they are VERY interested in fixing anything like this. 

 The thing is that it's happening on Carrara 5.1 Pro. I doubt they have the incline to fix it in their prior version. Mark, do you have an intel Mac? If you do, is their any way I could e-mail you my file and see if it renders correctly. You don't have to do a hi resolution render. The anomaly shows even in low resolutions. But I want to test Carrara 6 on Intel, to see if upgrading fixes the issue.

Do they have a working Demo of Carrara 6. I guess I could download that ant test it my self.

 Hi actually, I'm still running PPC although Intel is in the not to distant future. Of the folks I know rendering Carrara daily on Macintel, this hasn't cropped up before. 

**This is not an answer but I looked more closely at your screen capture: The anomaly looks like two missing polygons - it's also occuring on the same location on the objects. I'd open the shape up in the Vertex Room and double check that 1) the Normals are pointing outward, and 2) that there is actually a filled poly there. I've had something like this happen several times on geometry exported from other programs. (on very similar subject matter by the way!)

 Believe me, I did that. That was my first thought. The normals got switched somehow. But I check it and it still didn't fix it. The poli was filled, and the object in the center, it's the same as the ones on the sides. Like I said, it works fine on my G5 Macs, but on my iMac Core2duo it renders the anomaly.

 Doncha just love weirdness? The only other thing I can think of is something going on with how the shadows on the intel calculate. I'd try turning off soft shadows if you have them enabled, and see if that does anything. 

Otherwise, you win the prize this week for "What the heck is going on here?" :-/   Tell the company that they need to spring for C6. :D

I'd be happy to take a look at file if you want. Contact me via site mail if you want to.  

 I  will send it to you. It's rendering on a G5 currently. Now as far as asking the company spring out for C6. I am the company. I wanted, but I am in kind of a crunch right now. Moved to a better school district, boy taxes when up. :)

 Did you find anything funny on that file?

 Sent a site mail. Did you not get it?

 Nonsense, you did help me quite a bit. At least now I have the incentive and motivation to buy Carrara 6. I have been doing a lot of work with it, and I am very impressed with the features. Believe it or not, I am just discovering the new features for Carrara 5. :)

 O.k. Jumping to Carrara 6.1 fixed my rendering conundrum. Now it works like it should. So apparently I did stumble in to a rendering discrepancy on Carrara 5.1 Pro that apparently is exclusive to Intel Mac UB version running on Intel. In any case

I have not see to many changes from C5 to C6, at least in the surface. I need to dive a bit more deeply in to it, but this fixing by rendering problem is worth the $ that I paid for the upgrade.

No much in to buying content and working with human figures but I am still intrigued by all this new functionality.

 When you start digging, you'll like what you find.  ;)