My .02;

No one app is the silver bullet for every modeling need. Most studios I've worked for use multiple 3D packages depending on the assignment requirements.

Carrara has it's quirks but it's one of the best all around apps I've seen. Professionaly, I use it almost everyday. (The "name" software also has it's share of quirks by the way!) While there are many plug-ins for Carrara, they are VERY reasonably priced as compared to one-trick plugs that cost more than the entire 3D software packages for some of other big name programs. Also, Carrara has an outstanding render engine. In fact, you can do some things more easily in Carrara than Maya or LW!

LW, Maya, and some of the others were designed for the film/video animation marktets. Do you need complex water animation, smoke effects or explosions, mulitpass rendering for integration with AE? If that is your focus then at this point in time, the "names" are still the gotta-have-it apps for those needs.

LW and others are dropping their prices because more economical software packages, including Carrara, are beginning to meet them feature for feature.

I do have Vue 5 Infinite which is a very cool program - but it's no modeler. It's outstanding for environments. (Although Carrara is pretty good itself right now) Also, the Infinite system for replicating trees and such within a single scene is wonderful. That said, Carrara has a couple of plug-ins available (Anything Grows with Tip Objects and Replica) that do similar things. (Anything Grows is the closest since it populates the scene with instances instead of actual geometry like Replica does)Vue is a nice complement to Carrara - which is why LW is combining it with their offer too.

I don't know when the next version of Carrara will release, but the folks at Eovia usually add some amazing stuff with each release. But, you have to go wherever your budget, timeline and needs take you...

The attached image was done for an assignment combining Vue for the background and Carrara for everything in forground. The Vue scene was used as a background in the Carrara scene. Additional modeling done in Hexagon for some of the complex objects.

Message edited on: 09/05/2005 10:17

Message edited on: 09/05/2005 10:19

Message edited on: 09/05/2005 10:21