Upgrading from 6 Pro to 8.5 Pro...
dan_2490728695
Posts: 0
Hey everyone. I just got an email to upgrade to Carrara 8.5 Pro and Platinum Membership for a really good deal. I know it's been a long time coming, but it would be from Carrara 6 Pro straight to 8.5 Pro. I was curious if anyone had any insight as to what the advantages might be in doing this. And if there's anything I should be aware of while upgrading. Right now, I run a 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Mac Pro 4,1 with 16 Gb of Ram, and OS 10.6.8. I assume that is plenty to run the software and the correct OS since it says it's not compatible with Lion. Any help would be great as I would have to do the deal by the end of today.
Thanks in advance!
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Hello,
Carrara does in fact run on 10.7 and 10.8, but I agree, 10.6.8 is the best OS Apple has released so far. I think your system is up for it. Only issue I've had is "Valle Alpina" that made my Dual six core Mac Pro crawl on its knees. I'm not a Carrara guru though, far from (I still feel like a newbie with it so I might have done something stupid.
But, I say go for it!
take a look at this http://www.daz3d.com/products/carrara/carrara-tech-specs/ this is the tech specs for Carrara 8 so ignore the the system specs as they are wrong and then add the new features added in C8.5 which can be seen on the product page http://www.daz3d.com/carrara-software/carrara-8-5-pro and that should give you some idea of the difference between C6 and C8.5
Well... among other things, my Plug-Ins only support 7 and later :D
I never had or used 6, but some of the features that were new in 8 really were helpful. Modeling in the assembly room at least partially gets around the "single object" focus of the vertex modeler.
In 8.5, you can FINALLY expand the tree view pane in the content browser. I don't do the "separate runtime for each thing", and so I end up with fairly deep trees - it was annoying to only have the first three letters of the folder names visible.
The light icons having at least some resemblance to the light they represent finally make placing tube and shape lights reasonable. It's a little thing, but I like it.
8.5 renders GI faster. Still a lot slower than I'd like, though - considerably slower than PoserPro2014, for example.
They added IES in 8 which can give some nice, realistic light effects. Negative lights are also new since 6, and can solve some issues when trying to fake GI.
My understanding is that Poser content importing was considerably improved between 6 and 7... can't really speak to that personally, though.
Carrara 8.5 is compatible with 10.6 through 10.8. (Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion.)
In addition to what has already been mentioned.
Instancing has been significantly improved since Carrara 6. (The limit on the number of instances per replicator was significantly increased.)
Trees can now have more than one kind of leaf on them.
3D Paint, and improved UV Mapping tools both help if you prefer to create it yourself.
Animation tools have significantly improved between 6 and 8.5.
Texture map handling was also significantly improved.
Content Handling was significantly improved from 6 through 8.5.
And that is just some of the highlights.
Thanks for the replies. They are very helpful and good to see that it's compatible moving forward in newer OS's.
To expand on my question, since I should have in the first place, I'm also wondering whether or not I will be confused with any of the interface, if my existing files will be compatible (probably, but just checking), and also how much better is the renderer. I look at some of the stuff coming out of Modo and it looks so much better than most things I would render in Carrara. But I've been using Carrara since it was Raydream. That being said, I am no expert, but I can get around it pretty well. I just don't know which direction to go from here.
A brief explanation of what I do with Carrara: I usually build and render custom shapes for in-store displays, indoor and outdoor event spaces, new product concepts as well as existing products, etc. in the advertising and promotions industry. Not a whole lot of human figures unless they're in the scene. Some are for print and web purposes, but most are for development and concepting comps. Maybe some animation to show off the product or environment, but most clients don't want to fit that time into the budget.
Thanks again. You guys are awesome!
One thing I forgot, until you mentioned using Carrara in a Commercial environment, the number of render threads for render nodes were increased, both for Carrara Pro and The Grid.
I have just recently uninstalled 6 and 7 from my system otherwise I would show you that the Interface has stayed very similar so you wont get lost. I do find the render a lot better and faster (I have also upgraded my PC which helps a lot as well).
Now I am only a dabbler with Carrara as DAZ Studio is my main app but I do prefer the Carrara render engine I am just not as comfortable with it as some people are, but I did a large amount of my project work for University (creative design stuff for instructional manual and a personal vision video) in Carrara 8. But being a mature student doing a teaching Degree I did find the quality was of a professional standard .
So I don't think you will regret upgrading to C8.5
Poser content import is nearly flawless in Carrara V.8 (released several years ago). That feature (whenever it started, I don't recall exactly) is why Carrara is my animation tool of choice. Having used Poser itself for many years (along with Bryce, Lightwave, etc.), Carrara offered both the support of reasonably priced Poser content (of which I own almost all ... ;-P), AND the ability to manage large scene files for short animations.
DAZ had won over many of us with its great combination of wonderful Poser content and a great program in Carrara. The updated documentation was "Coming Shortly!", and we could all look forward to many years of new features in Carrara.
Then something changed ... :coolmad:
Steve K, you should have a PM.
OK, thanks, I saw it.
Just wanted to come back and quickly thank everyone for their replies. I went ahead and purchased the upgrade and will hopefully install it, and more importantly, enjoy it soon in the future.