I've probably missed something, but with C5 when I start with a new empty doc and then place an object in the scene and then afterwards decide to put a sky behind it by selecting a sky from the browser pane, the program adds a second camera1 and a greyed-out light and when I try to render there is nothing but blackness behind the object I originally created. So what am I doing wrong? Do I always have to start with a sky first?

Hi Pisaacs, How are you adding your sky? There is several ways, so knowing might help figure out the issue. Black skys are not the norm. Mark

Thanks Mark. I'm dragging on the sky icon in the browser into the scene. I've also tried dragging it into the "instance" pane

pisaacs, The skies in the browser are actual scenes, not just pure skies. So, you will need to delete a camera if you do the drag and drop thing. If you'd like to simply load a sky preset, then click on the load preset button in the properties tray. Mark

I seldom use sky presets anymore since I found out about the sky editor. All you have to do is click on SCENE, on your instances tab, then go to the effects tab above that and click on the ATMOSPHERE drop-down menu. and pick one of the choices there; cloudy fog, distance fog, realistic sky, sky, etc. If you pick the realistic sky you'll see an edit button; click on that and the sky edit controls will appear. You can add 4 different layers of clouds and a fog layer, sun and moon position, sky and haze color etc.  It may take a little getting used to if you come from other apps like Vue, or Bryce, but Carrara can do some excellent skies, especially in conjunction with the new volumetric clouds you can add to your scene. Good luck, and have fun. Dan

Thanks guys! I had never tried highlighting the scene tab. Whole new world!