I built this model in Wings and ran it through UVMapper so I could make a texture map. It's for a nightime scene I'm working on. I wanted to texture and render it in Carrara. I admit I was intimidated about trying to set up my alpha map in Carrara because of all the "horror stories" I've read about at the DAZ forum, but a little tinkering got it to work right away.

The improved object import options in Carrara6.2 on make it very easy to import and texture models because you can import a model as different object groups. This makes it very easy to take a UVmapped and textured model and substitute Carrara shaders for some parts.
I get to love this app more and more all the time.

 Congratulations! ;)

 Carrara's shaders are it's strongest feature. I use several other pro grade software and wish the had the same level of features and plug-ins that Carrara does. 

Quote -  Carrara's shaders are it's strongest feature.

I echo Mark without hesitation!
Great work with the building ;)

 
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Holyforest,
Hundreds of shaders for Carrara

Thank you Danas, Mark, and Holyforest.

I do most of my texturing in Carrara and bake it for my other 3D apps to render.  Love its procedural shaders.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Welcome to the club! (I think I know at least a dozen that have moved from Bryce to Carrara.)

(Only thing I miss from Bryce is volumetric materials, but I believe there is a plugin somewhere that covers those. Oh, and I guess the ability to lock objects from selection while keeping them visible is another thing I wish Carrara had.)

Btw, after seeing earlier posts at the Wings forum, I see you did the windows. That one little thing makes the upper floors look lived-in now. I'd like to see how your neighborhood collection is going to grow.

Back on Bryce to Carrara... Animation-wise and with most other stuff, it's actually better. And the way things work is pretty to figure out with former Bryce experience.

One thing that would probably benefit your UV mapped models is that Inagoni Baker Plugin. (Which I still need to get) Then you can take those nifty Carrara shaders, bake them onto your pre-existing UVs, and put those in your model's texture sets that you're selling or giving away. (Seems tons easier than trying to do all that texturing by hand, and you still get the benefit of the procedurals with added flexibility. This is because you can throw on another layer to dress or grunge things up on the tex-map image in Photoshop or whatever.)

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Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.

Thank you Pauljs. I'm glad you like the extra window details. I still need to add that table next to the restaurant window.;)  I think that you and ShawnDriscoll are right about baking textures. Baking textures can also save a lot of rendering overhead, at least from what I've read/heard, especially with the procedural shaders. I plan to pick up the Baker plug-in this week. It sounds like a good investment. Adding extra detail in an image editor adds to the fun. Maybe I should give this model a little added "grunge".
I'm gonna go add to the neighborhood. Someone mentioned that I needed a bar to add to the realism. I might just copy a little haunted bar/hotel I know of. Every musician I know who has played in that bar, or slept in the hotel has an eerie and often amusing story. It's only 2 stories and might fit in nicely.

Rendering procedurals takes a while when Global Illumination is on.  That's when baked procedurals come in handy if you are doing a lot of renders.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Shawn-
Carrara has texture baking?

Yes.  When exporting an OBJ model, you have the option to convert procedural shading to JPG files.  The Baker plugin from Inagoni will give you much more choices of what to include in the JPG files and at much higher resolutions.

www.youtube.com/user/ShawnDriscollCG

Never tried any of Inagoni's plug-ins before; Baker does sound enticing though :)

 Baker is totally worth it.

That's a great looking building.  I do not use Carrara nearly as much as I should.

Free men do not ask permission to bear arms!!

Thank you UVDan. I find myself going to Carrara more and more to express my ideas.