I have had Carrara for about a week now. I have only been messing around with 3d modeling for about a month. I have been building lots of models in nendo...I loved nendo for its simplicity. The program got out of my way and I could make what was in my minds eye. Then I noticed my models where not yet alive. They all had form but they had no function or context. I want my models to live..."I want them to arobasize" (I know...spelling..but its a great quote." As a video editor I have had a fair amount of graphic tools at my finger tips. Last summer I took the time to learn after effects. I can now do very sweet animations with it. This year I looked at lightwave...holy cow...what a confusing product. Then I found nendo...what an easy product. NOw I have found Carrara. Compared to lightwave and max Carrara seems a walk in the park. I have gotten further with Carrara then I have any other 3d program outside of nendo. I imported my nendo models and have seen some great things. The problem is that I dont know where to start. I still am having some interface problems (I have a human figure...for some reason..no matter what the view in the model room I cant rotate the model around to see the front side!)and I am still somewhat over whelmed. I can learn complex software very easily. With-in hours I was kickin out cool after effects animations and within day's I was taking names on the avid. The trick tho has been that there was always someone who could get me started. It may have been the senior editor at my first job showing me how to set up user preferances on the avid or a "brian moffet" training tape for after effects. I need some good tutorials. I still plan on using nendo to do my base shapes (its a sweet modeler) but I would like to touch up the models in Carrara when Im done in nendo. I need to know how to use shaders. I have the manual. It tells the process...it doesnt tell how tho (does that make sense to anyone but me? :) ) Is there a great source of lessions somewhere for carrara? I plan on buying the carrara bible when its done but even with a release date of this week you never can tell about release dates. Oh well thanks for listening and give me some suggestions as what I should do to get going....I have some objects that need life!!