just curious.... which in your opinion is the better render engine assuming we want to create the most photo-realistic renders...lets also assume that we are rendering the same scenes with same textures, mesh, etc. in each render engine.... eovia on their website claims that carrara 2.0 can render "Ultra Photorealistic" images.....i figured id ask you users who are more experienced than me in what you think is the better engine.....besides, i just bought 2.0 and still have to work my way around the basic functions of the prog and so it'll be a while before i figure out how to get maximum quality renders. please advice....thanks again for reading and for any replies!!! =)

I think C2 is better. It surpassed raytracing in this version. Global Illumination and Indirect Light are 'real world' light circumstances that a ray tracing engine can not produce easily. In Carrara 3 this gets even better with softedged raytraced shadows, but the features I read on the curious labs site, regarding the FireFly render engine were already in Carrara 1 (even in Ray Dream, as I remember correctly). Still, you can make great renders in Poser5, but mostly if you want typical 'studio' portraits and stuff like that. Upgrading is a good idea, for 'extreme ultra mega photorealistic images' if one wants to do better than the C2 marketing-talk (are you sure it is not referring to C3?)

i confused things.....the "ultra photo realistic" claim is not on eovia's website....i saw it on a software website.....heres what they said: -------------------------------------------------------- Detailed Description [return to top] Beginners and advanced users will love Carrara Studio 2's usability and price. Each step of the 3D creation process is divided into separate "rooms". These include Assembly, Modeling, Texturing, Rendering and Animation. And since accessibility also means saving money, Carrara Studio 2 still remains at the same remarkably attractive price. Ultra-realistic rendering You probably know how difficult it is to render a realistic 3D scene, with all the subtle interactions between lights that create a warm and natural look to objects and landscapes. Have a look at what surrounds you and you will see how colors mix together: the way a blue object projects a blue tone on its surroundings, how the natural light of the sun interacts with a room's ceiling and walls, or the transparency and reflection of a simple windowpane. That is what realism is, and this is what Carrara Studio 2 now offers with Photon Mapping, the first algorithm capable of a truly global approach to realistic image rendering. Photon Mapping combines in a single rendering engine all the strengths of the previous two best approaches: Ray Tracing and Radiosity. Reflection, Refraction, Diffuse Lighting, Color Bleeding, Caustics, Area Light Emitters (with no limitation on geometry and complexity), Sky Dome Illumination and Environment Illumination are some of the features found in the brand new, state-of-the-art Photon Mapping rendering engine of Carrara Studio 2. Bones and Skinning Ever dreamed of creating and animating realistic or alien-looking characters and models? Guess what? It's no longer a dream! Bones Skinning is a great feature that helps you modify, deform and animate an existing object or group of objects in real time, without the need to change the geometry of your object by hand and one step at a time. The Bones feature is as simple to use as playing with a puppet! First you model or import an object, then you create a series of simple bones and joints to simulate the skeleton of that object. When done, you just need to move the bones and the geometry of the object will accurately follows the changes you make. As always, Carrara Studio brings you a high-end feature yet with a very simple and straightforward interface. Unlike competing products that prefer complexity to usability, creating a complete skeleton is achieved in a matter of minutes instead of hours, with all the influence zones being automatically calculated. Subdivision Modeling This feature is a natural companion to Bones Skinning, but does even more. Subdivision Modeling allows the design of complex and highly detailed characters and organic shapes. Do you think a face or a human character are very complex to create in 3D? Not at all! All you need is a bit of a sense of observation and Carrara Studio's Subdivision Modeling. Thanks to the use of simplified polygonal objects that are automatically subdivided to add details, this approach greatly simplifies the modeling of easily animated realistic characters. Native MAC OS X Version Mac users will be happy to hear that their favorite 3D software has been completely ported to Apple's latest Operating System. Carrara Studio 2 is now available for both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. Requirements Windows # Pentium II 300 MHz or better # Windows 98, 2000, Me, XP, NT 4.0 compatible # 64 MB physical Ram (128 Recomended # 3D Graphics card recomended # 100 MB free hard drive space Mac OS 9 # Power Macintosh G3 266Mhz or higher # Mac OS 8.1 or later # 128 MB of Physical Ram # 3D Graphics card recomended # 100 MB free hard drive space

If you're talking about the Poser 5 Firefly vs. Carrara 2/3 GI, they're both good, but Poser 5 Firefly can't do GI directly AFAIK, so you're stuck with those huge light sets they use in Poser to try to simulate GI.

yeah...thats true. heres one experience i had with Poser lights-----i wanted a scene where i had a sunny blue sky outdoor lighting effects....so i looked around and found a PZ3 with that lighting effect....so i said "KEWL!".....i open it up and found that to simulate that outdoor light effect there were like 1000 light globes (im just exagerating for comedic effect)......so i said, "Man....I cant use this...it slows my comp like crazy!" but heres the thing....i decided to do a super duper crash test for Poser 5.....i said if i could render a scene using all lights without Poser 5 crashing then that would be the ultimate crash-proof test! so i did.....i turned on the shadows for ALL of the light globes and turned on the Production quality render then clicked on render.... any guy with a normal mind knows that something like this will take at least 4 hours to render on a Celeron 1Gig 512RAM comp....so i turned my monitor off.....got breakfast (at 1 in the afternoon).....slep for i forget how long.....woke up....checked the render.....and VOLLA!! the render completed!!!!!! i had the rendered image!!!! AND BEST OF ALL----NO KIDIN----POSER 5 DIDNT CRASH!!!!! Woooohoooh!! but when you render 100KB pics 5-6 times Poser 5 gets too tired and takes a nap...hmmm.....