Well, if folks accept the idea that a PC can auto-replicate it's way to making art, then we might all as well pack up our art tool boxes and head back to the caves in France. There we can start back on the wall paintings do some real art.

I've owned Vue5I for about 7 months now, and it is probably better at doing pure landscape work; however, after playing with Carrara's surface replicator I'd say that it will work fine for most landscape art. Vue does created unique individuals when it does its ecosystems. I really dont think it would take that much more resources for Carrara to do the same?

To compare Carrara to Vue is a bit...useless, as Carrara's overall capabilities leave Vue way behind. I am very disappointed with e-on's marketing, as Vue5I is likely one of the most undeveloped 3D applications ever released in recent history. It was really a beta, not a well beta tested product when it was released! I think about 12 patches were released over a 5 month period!

I've been hammering Carrara5 most of today, and I only got one exception (don't really know what I did) but the program did not crash, and exhibited no outlandish behavior afterwards. That's damn good for a beta!

My only complaint (which has been one for some time) is Carrara's poor implementation of visible, volumetric lighting with shadows. They won't stream through glass! The light passes through, but the nice foggy beams stop cold. Also, the color of the glass (or other transparent material) is not picked up and transmitted beyond the, glass. trueSpace excels at this, and even Vue5I will do it, but for some reason, Eovia lets this one get through revision after revision?

Sure, I can remove window panes, so (as an example) the multi-pane windows will cast a nice shadowed spray of foggy light, but that is cheesy!

So, when I need that kind of scene, I go to trueSpace, or model in Cararra, and import to Vue.

If someone at Eovia is reading this give us some good realistic volumetric, visible, foggy particulate laden lights! Do this before C5Pro hits the streets. This tired spotlight (and other light effects as well) has been pretty much unchanged from the old RD days!

So far, this is my only real complaint with C5Pro, and it has been ongoing since Carrara 2. If someone can enlighten me (no pun intended) concerning some possible ignorance that I posses? (And yes, all the requisite light rendering functions are active).