hello , ive been thinking of getting carrara as it seems to be a good modeling and rendering program. what are the pros and cons of it? whats the difference from the regular version and the pro?    thanks

The differences betwen the various Carraras is detailed on the DAZ site.  The Pro version is excellent value for what you get.  Try and get if you can afford.  You won't regret owning Carrara.

the cons: could be a very dead end, maybe there will not be any updates. considering carrara myself, but NO real news whatsoever about any future development (as with hexagon).

One could make a point that most of us will take years to get the best out of Carraras [capabilities and that updates only add to the already huge learning workload? 

The motorcar I owned before this current one I had for 28 years-with a family of 7 drawing on it,s capabilities. It always got us safely and ecconomically everwhere we wanted, or needed to go!

Got Carrara yesterday.I am deeply impressed with render speed.Shader room seems quite confusing to me.I think you can dare to buy. With platinum membership you can save a lot of money.

Good stuff. Compared to Poser, Bryce-and most others I have seen, the Carrara Shader room set up is the easiest and most logical of all. It won't take you long to agree I am sure.  

Study the Shader presets to work things out-and "fiddle" to see what happens when you change things. And the Help is exceptionally good. 

Enjoy!

Hi, is it possible to buy platinum membership for a month and save on the carrara pro purchase? Thanks in advance.

Quote - Got Carrara yesterday.I am deeply impressed with render speed.Shader room seems quite confusing to me.I think you can dare to buy. With platinum membership you can save a lot of money.

"Hi, is it possible to buy platinum membership for a month and save on the carrara pro purchase? Thanks in advance."

I dont think that there is a problem with that.

Attached Link: Carrara render, several items made in Carrara

For modeling it has a very powerfull spline modeler , and a good vertex modeler (getting better all the time). Bolean modeling is much improved in C5, the metaball modeler is probably the least favorite of most Carrara users. In general, you can model just about anything you want to in Carrara, but not as quickly and easily as a dedicated modeling program (i.e. hexagon, silo, modo, etc.),  Except for Cinema 4D, Carrara has a much better learning curve than the more expensive 3D applications too (which all do very well at modeling, once you get over the learning curve).

The render engine in Carrara is awsome. I use it as my main renderer because it is very easy to get the lighting set up to make a very nice image. If you get the pro version you even get a license to run 5 render nodes (a mini render farm) which can really improve performance. For me, getting good results in Carrara is much easier than with Poser, or C4D.

I switched from C4D to Carrara when the upgrade price to go from V6 to V8 was too steep. I use Hexagon (V1) and Carrara 5Pro as my primary modelers, but still use C4D (V6) for a few things that it does better. If your just starting out in 3D, or use Poser, Carrara is a great way to expand your tool set.

As for worrying about it being a dead end product now that DAZ has it, I wouldn't be overly concerned.  DAZ seems to have made a commitment to producing 3D software, and they have the Carrara development team from Eovia on staff. I would expect some very good things in Carraras future. But even if DAZ doesn't improve Carrara, the current product is well worth the purchase price, and should be usable for many years. I'm quite happy with it.

You should download the demo and take it for a test drive.

thanks a lot guys verry infomatiove. ive got the demo and goin to try it out !! woot

There are huge discounts on the Carrara products at daz right now so if you are still thinking about buying it now may be the time. The basic edition can be had for $9!

Hi all.

I'm a poser user and now I'm learning 3dMAX. I'd like to know if Carrara (Basic version) can help me in getting better Poser renders (while I'm able to do cool stuff in MAX, winning an oscar, working in pixar, etc)

Basic version is just 9 $ in DAZ' store and it's so temptating, but... will I be able to use it??

Thx in advance.

Basic really is just too basic if you have 3DMax.   But, anyway, for $9?-----

I don't think Basic has the same render quality as Standard/Pro and you need the Transposer plugin with it I suggest.

When you put together uncertainty about upgrade, lack of bundled Transposer, lack of native mode, lack of the GI engine (and basically a cut-down render engine all around) Basic is no bargain. Really, 5 or 5 pro is a better deal.