After seeing some eye popping renders in galleries my curiosity has taken the better of me...
BUT before I jump in all excited..
Is the 30 day trial worth it? or is it one of those trials where you get a microscopic window to work in and about three of the tools to use? and then you cant save?
Also, it is fairly easy to learn?
is it a resource hog?
O.O

Easy to use and fully functional.

The 30 day trial is the whole program. I don't know how they control the time limit.
Carrara has many, many, many features and so takes a little longer to learn than, say, Poser. From the start, the render engine makes even minimal scenes look like great art work.
Carrara uses as much memory as poser, but it does not have the memory leaks that poser has. Where poser crashes at least once a day, I have had only one carrara crash in a year.
It depends on your computer RAM, but carrara is very friendly to other programs being open at the same time.  I sometimes have carrara and photoshop both open at once.

well it seems nice..but how do you stop figures from looking like they are made from high polish porcelain? I tried the bump map setting, the reflection setting, the shine setting, I did photorealistic setting on the render. did the adjust gama...and it still comes out looking like vic is a china doll with a high shine >.<

You need to play with the HIGHLIGHT and SHININESS values to get what you want.

Quote - well it seems nice..but how do you stop figures from looking like they are made from high polish porcelain? I tried the bump map setting, the reflection setting, the shine setting, I did photorealistic setting on the render. did the adjust gamma...and it still comes out looking like vic is a china doll with a high shine >.<

Don't feel bad Dark, I got confused by this as well.

It sounds like you might be trying to edit the master shader? Try one of the shaders lower in the tree (i.e. if you are trying to modify a shader for a dress, go into the texture room and try looking for the shader in the shader tab on the right hand side of the screen that has a name like 'cloth' or 'skirt' and modify it directly by double clicking on it. - Create a new master shader if it prompts you) - these are only examples mind you, it will be a different name for every object generally. It may require some trial and error to find the shader you need, but hopefully this will get you started in the general dirrection?

PS. For what it's worth, I really like Carrara. If you do the 30 day trial and you like it, I'd recommend buying a copy. It is easy to use once you learn how and is pretty powerful given the price.

One thing:  If you are thinking about buying the boxed version, it does not come with a printed manual, its contents contain two discs, your application disk and and an advertisement disc. and a quick reference card with keyboard shortcuts.  However, the application disc does contain a .pdf--its not too bad if you know what you want to find out about say putting designs and stuff on your model.  DAZ was thinking about a printed manual-someday maybe, perhaps.  Jan