Is Carrara dead?
mgf64mba
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DAZ has a story of abandoning products users would have liked to be able to use on a Mac: e.g.: Bryce, Hexagon...
Hexagon was basically unusable on a Mac.
Bryce can't even be properly >:-(installed on a modern Mac anymore.
Is Carrara next in line? In other terms, is Carrara EOL just like Hexagon and Bryce were?
You need to hire and RETAIN developers, if you realistically intend to sell software:
You can't possibly think of offering software you outsourced on a hire and fire basis and just drop support after product introduction.
If you persist, you are upsetting your users, and I humbly suggest that's not a viable business strategy.
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Poll removed. Please review the DAZ 3D Froum TOS for advice on using polls #19
Uhm, I think that the results of that poll could have been an interesting read for DAZ management.
However, the core of the question still stands:
Is Carrara dead, or there still is faint hope?
I have been patiently waiting for about two years or so.
I bet I am not the only Carrara customer who is not happy and considers Carrara 8 a botched product.
This is bad as Carrara was a product with lots of promise, which I loved to use.
There are a handful of Mac users who post here, the rest of us are Windows users (even though I have a Mac Mini for older programs, I don't use it much and never for Carrara). Maybe Holly or one of the Mac users will post what she's seen in improvements in the 8.5 beta. There reportedly have been fixes if I recall correctly. They have been spending most of the past couple years on Genesis, the redo and repair of the website and store and on documentation. Maybe we will start seeing the benfits of all that work soon as the website and store seem to be working much better as of late. Maybe the Galleries will be back soon, too. They are very busy!
I get ... reactions whenever I say this - but apple are just as much to blame as DAZ!
Carrara runs flawlessly on my mac, but I'm on OSX 10.5.2.
Problems began with the changes introduced in 10.6! I heard the reports and chose not to upgrade.
Not coincidentally, these reports increase with every update apple puts out.
By sacrificing backwards compatibility apple put many software companies in a corner. Daz should have been able to keep up, and are equally at fault in this - but I refuse to exonerate apple for this! The blame must be shared.
I believe backwards compatibility for 10 years to be a reasonable demand to place on every OS out there. Emulators are out there and should be part of every OS release.
But my opinions are not usually popular ... I still believe ALL problems, everywhere, can be resolved by DAZ releasing The Millennium Cow.
Did I mention that I am made entirely out of wood?
I agree with you somewhat. The transition to OS X 10.6 seems to have caught a lot of developers out cold. I think it was stripping the Carbon code that did it. Many 3rd party devs used it as a lazy way to keep legacy code running. Apple made no secret of their OS road map, but still, they could have done better at encouraging and aiding 3rd party and smaller devs. as the time approached.
I am on an older pre-Intel Mac and find it frustrating as I don't have the money at the moment to upgrade, but I also realize that things must move forward. The transition to OS X was equally hard and frustrating for devs. and users alike. I was hoping Apple would learn from it's past mistakes (Not that OSX was a mistake, it could have been handled with more transparency).
Oh yeah, I don't think it's dead at all.
I don't think it's quite dead...yet...
But I think DAZ has made it very clear that it is no longer a software development company. In other words they no longer rely on revenue from the software they sell, but only from the content they sell. By giving away almost all of their software for free, that's what they are saying.
And that's not good.
And let's face it, Carrara is so far behind the times in terms of features that people will pay money for that it's kind of embarrassing. And trying to compete with Blender is almost impossible.
Now, if Carrara had some awesome features and was on the cutting edge, then maybe you could carve out a real, sustainable market of higher-end hobbyists who would pay for it. But the way it stands now, who is going to pay for Carrara? If someone asked you "Why should I spend all that money on Carrara?", what would you say? Which is probably why you see such deep discounts on Carrara lately.
Pick just about any feature of Carrara, and you can find free software that does it better.
I think that the bottom line for all of DAZ's software is that any future development (if there is any) is going to be directed at attracting content sales, so you'll see "features" in Carrara and the rest of DAZ's software whose main purpose is to implement new content developments. Stuff like Genesis (a new type of content) and other new content developments. Future development will be in content features, not software features. Because they don't make money on software, they make money on content.
Which begs the question: "If DAZ makes their money on content sales, then why would they hire developers to work on software, instead of directing them to work on developing new content?".
Personally, my guess is that in 2013 Carrara will be offered for free (or close to it), and it will wither away. And when (or if) Blender gets the ability to natively handle content, Carrara will become irrelevant.
It'll be interesting to see if plays out this way. I promise that I won't diss you for making an "I told you so" post some time in the next 12 months. :)
I wouldn't be dissed at all. In fact I'd be kinda happy if someone could tell me this time next year "I told you so", and Carrara was humming along with some awesome new energy.
Heck, maybe there really is a Ninja-assassin team of software commandos hard at work at Draper, as well as contractors around the world working feverishly, night and day, developing fire and smoke and softbody and cloth and all that cool stuff hobbyists really want. And maybe they really can cram 15 years worth of work into one year. And maybe somehow DAZ found millions of $$ to pay these guys.
And maybe they're planning for a Carrara 9, to be introduced this time next year, that will knock your socks off AND blow the shorts off of all the competition.
But the chances of anything even remotely close to that are, IMO, virtually zero. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
The ninjas aren't on fire though... LOL
for what I can see out of there, if we have to start a low budget production where time and numbers matter, carrara and daz contents may play a big role yet, . that said, daz must quickly implement carrara and above all create a more direct line with professional users in particular: where are the developers? if during a production I need a feedback for a script or a routine I can hope for some help? if I need to improve the hair department with whom I may speak? without these possibilities we can not talk about its death but sort of induced coma, hoping for a sudden wake up
Not dead they are planning to do stuff with it. At the Comic Con in January they were promoting Carrara heavily and I got to ask questions and got told some stuff about development.
The next Comic Con in New Orleans is going to be November 30th til December 2nd of this year, so I'll be sure and go if DAZ is going to be at to see what is in the works and ask questions.
With Bryce one problem is the code used in it, is a hindrance with further development.
Intriguing. I hope you can update us in early December. I'm not too far from New Orleans (Dallas area actually)...but I'd love to visit. Never been to any sort of Con before either. Alas, I have no available vacation time left this year.
At first I had a hard time linking Daz and 3D work with comics -- but I was being too literal in my mind. Actually, there is a very nice fit there... ;)
As in, "toss it in the trash" stuff, or "hire a team of Ninja-assassins to turn it into an awesome, butt-kicking CG super app", or "limp along making it a content delivery system" stuff?
The bottom line as it appears to me is that most people using Carrara LOVE it despite its weaknesses and would just be a lot happier if Daz communicated its intentions as other software companies do - oops we already acknowledged they are not a software developer but a content company.
But wait - haven't they been putting all that effort into developing Daz Studio ??? Its a vastly different package to what DS 2 was a few years back. And then they give it away - oh they did put a price tag on version 4 then dropped it - marketing strategy or simply no one buying?
We cant say they have done nothing for Carrara in that same period but they just dont seem interested in selling it !
Should I start learming Blender ? :gulp:
I really hate when the polls get taken down.
They can be useful and the original poster put it up for a reason.
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Anyway, I don't think Carrara is dead. Daz just needs to get behind it more.
They're working on getting Genesis into Carrara (see C8.5).
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I think a lot of artists, especially small independent ones, can make good use of it.
Before anyone lobs a grenade my way, I'm a professional and I use Carrara and know a few other pros who do.
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It's good software, but it needs greater visibility and documentation to help users get the most out of it.
Yeah, I suspect that young males who like fantasy-world type stuff is DAZ's primary market.
I'm curious, what makes you think that?
This isn't an attack, I'm just trying to find out if people have reasons that I'm missing.
I have started reading 3D Artist and 3D World magazines -- I recall seeing exactly one Daz advert for the Victoria/Michael models. Not a peep about Carrara or DS. It appears that the industry only talks about LightWave, Maya, Modo, ZBrush and sometimes Blender...
Tight-fitting leather and big breasts FTW! :P
I am male but I sure ain't young anymore...
I have started reading 3D Artist and 3D World magazines -- I recall seeing exactly one Daz advert for the Victoria/Michael models. Not a peep about Carrara or DS. It appears that the industry only talks about LightWave, Maya, Modo, ZBrush and sometimes Blender...
If you've just started, you've missed all the DAZ freebies (Victoria and Michael), free software, etc., and yes full page ads. They also promoted Carrara for v7 with big ads that showed one of Howie's scenes with V4 walking down the road. The last big deal was Genesis winning an award in 3D World... that's why they rushed Genesis out - to try for the award that year.
I'm curious, what makes you think that?
This isn't an attack, I'm just trying to find out if people have reasons that I'm missing.
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Well Joe,
I think it is still alive because they are working on Carrara8.5, trying to get Genesis into it.
If it were dead, I wouldn't think they would go through so much to put Genesis, a system that Daz has pretty much bet the farm on, into Carrara.
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That shows me they are hoping to keep Carrara alive, at least for the forseable future.
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I could be wrong.
I Hope not.
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You're right. In the press, Carrara and D|S don't get much love.
The industry at large does seem to focus on 3DSMax, Maya, ZBrush, etc.
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I'm just talking about people I know professionally, on the local level.
And there are reasons why you don't see it in the press very much...
First of all, it costs money for a company to buy space in a publication for an advertisement. And if you're a small company like DAZ with limited budget, they can't afford expensive advertising costs.
Secondly, few people use it. VERY few people use it, and that's why there's relatively little interest. And yes, it's a bit of a vicious cycle. Few people use it, therefore there's little interest, therefore you don't see much interest in the press, therefore nobody knows about it, therefore nobody uses it.
Thirdly, in the scheme of things, compared to other offerings out there, Carrara honestly isn't all that hot. Like I've said before, it's not easy to market a product that doesn't have stuff that people are interested in. How would YOU market Carrara? Especially in light of all the free stuff out there that does so much stuff better. It's not easy. It's a whole lot easier to develop and market cool new content then it is to spend years of development to bring Carrara up to where other apps have already been for years.
But to make Carrara better takes a lot of investment. But if investors don't know about Carrara, and there's no history of sales, and no clear indication there can be sales, then they aren't willing to invest in a product with little potential for a return on their investment.
And like we've discussed before, people here WANT for DAZ to invest in Carrara, but it's actually a very difficult proposition. It's like saying to a guy who makes $40,000 a year "hey, you really need to invest in a $10 million house". Yeah, that would be nice, but it's easier said than done.
But, like I say, we've discussed this all before, but that doesn't change people's belief that it's just a matter of DAZ showing some love for Carrara and things will be all better.
I use it
a lot
I know VERY few people into computer graphics but the few I have come across in my very backwater Adelaide existence HAVE heard of it!
and not any of those very few I have met use Daz dollies either
you move in different circles, maybe your peers do not use it
does not stop you posting a lot about how negative it all apparently is though!
I haven't been using carrara as long as some, but longer then DAZ. I've watch the number of not only casual but experienced artiest using carrara steadily drop since DAZ bought it. Why?
Because carrarests want an industrial standard app and DAZ wants to sell content. So rather then try to keep up with the rest of the CG apps DAZ has used it's carrara developmental time to make carrara use more content and use it better. What this means is carrara has fallen behind even free CG apps.
So are carrara developers working on soft body physics? Dynamic clothing? Realistic water effects? Better atmospherics? So it can actually compete in the market with similar apps. No they are working on getting DAZ's latest money pit and their new file format to work in carrara.
With each new build of carrara I see more and more carrarists going to other apps. Why? Because DAZ is steadily trying to turn carrara in to yet another content marketing tool rather then a competitive CG app.
This begs the question, "Why did DAZ buy Carrara to begin with?" The sequence of events really doesn't make any sense if DAZ's only focus on Carrara is to make it use their "latest money pit."
Why sink all that effort into this endeavour if it only means the hastened irrelevance of the application and further deterioration of the user base? A better course of action would be to work with the Blender community to get that application using DAZ content. (I hope I didn't give them any ideas there...I doubt it since it appears that nobody at DAZ actually reads our Carrara rant threads).
Oh jeez...I'm starting to sound like JoeMamma... (kidding buddy! ;) )
To get the Poser SDKs that poser wouldn't sell out right to DAZ. They came with carrara when DAZ bought it. Carrara used to work quite well with poser, in fact transposer could import fully functioning dynamic clothing animations from poser. Well we can't have that, Poser is the competition, so no more transposer.
Of the new noncontent features in carrara none of them were developed by DAZ. Dynamic hair was done for DAZ by the last of the old carrara developers. DAZ has since broke it and appears quite unable to fix it.
Bullet physics is from another company and shoe horned in to carrara, not developed by DAZ.
What other new features has carrara gotten since DAZ has had it? I mean that aren't directly content related?
It almost sounds like you are part of the dev team... ;) That's some pretty deep insight there.
General knowledge. It's just a matter of being here since DAZ bought carrara. As I have said I was conscripted by DAZ when they bought carrara ;) Of coarse that SDK thing is an opinion, but I'll stand by it. As is the termination of transposer. I've been told other wise, but I just don't buy it. Transposer work excellent for me, the replacement for it was to make a bunch of movement/draping morphs in poser but I never could get it to work for an animation.
And as I have said repeatedly my ultimate goal is to have a model walk down a runway with dynamic hair blowing, dynamic clothes draped and moving, and soft body jiggles.