I've been hearing about Carrara some off & on the last few months, but as a beginner I'm confused about the exact purpose of Carrara compared to DAZ.  I understand that DAZ created the people, animals & various other creatures(monsters, dragons, architecture, vehicles, etc), but what exactly does Carrara do that DAZ does not? What's the difference exactly?

Someone recommended C8 to me because apparently it handles "Collision Detection" better than DAZ, and the GUI is supposedly different, but other than that, is there a reason I should use Carrara along with or instead of DS4?

In the descriptions of the programs at DAZ, the precise advantages or differences of the various programs are really not spelled out. Also, a related question, what does Hexagon do that neither of the above do? Or Lux Render vs Reality. Is Hexagon more closely related to Bryce or something else?

Also, does Carrara have any real manuals or documentation? Because we all know DAZ has practically none except for a few tutorial videos.

Hi, the real difference is that Carrara is a full modeler and render system. You cant model, create landscapes, clouds, fire, particles, collision detection (hard and softbody) in Daz Studio. Also Carrara allow you to paint in 3D, create morphs, adjust meshes and a lot of things that a modeler can do.

DazStudio is like the name says: a studio. Just load a bunch of the done objects, adjust light and textures and render. The only thing thatI really like in DS is the Reality plugin, but if you dont have a very good machine or video borad, your render can take forever to render.

You need to think what you want to do now and in the near future: do you want to create you own models to add to Vic or Mic scenes? Go for Carrara. If you only want to create scenes with done characters, go for Daz Studio. 

Now run to get Daz Studio free anyway! You can get hexagon that is a very simple and good modeler and get Bryce too. Why? DAZ are working in a file format that will allow us to load almost all scenes from Carrara, Bryce, DazStudio inside any DAZ software!

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d/free-3d-software-overview?home_5_btn=start

Simply put:

DAZ = Content manipulator and renderer

Carrara = Content creator/modeller/texturer and scene creator + renderer

Hex = Content creation/modeller

OK, many thanks for that good & helpful info. I appreciate it! :)