I am not a frequent poster in these forums. In fact this is my very first post. But I have worked with Carrara long enough to be quite aware of its strengths and weaknesses.

Anyhow here is a very exciting development by Intel which, I believe, could benefit Carrara's native renderer a lot, if its implemenrtation in Carrara is indeed technically feasible.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/embree-photo-realistic-ray-tracing-kernels

This library has been implemented in Cinema 4D R15 native renderer and it looks like it resulted in some significant speed improvements in C4D's already blazingly fast renderer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJd-WEtkg-Q

Carrara's renderer has, in my opinion, 2 major deficiencies: 1) it does not process light as accurately as, say, Lightwave or C4D and 2) Its Global Illumination is so slow that it's mostly useless in complex scenes.

This library could be a great way to rejuvenate Carrara's renderer and bring it on par with other 'big boys'.