Carrara vs Carrara Pro: How to Compare?

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I would like to see a table comparing Carrara to Carrara Pro, to help me determine which one better suits my needs.

Can you tell me where I can find such a table?

DUDU

Look at here : http://www.daz3d.com/products/carrara/carrara-tech-specs/

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Thanks. Is there an upgrade path to Carrara Pro?

Dartanbeck

Rottenham said:

Thanks. Is there an upgrade path to Carrara Pro?

Not an advertised one. But I've heard that you can contact DAZ and discuss upgrade pricing. I needed far too many of the Pro features to go the other way - so I'm glad I just started out with Pro. But if you don't need the Pro portions to start with, I understand that DAZ 3D is pretty nice to work with on things like this. One of the stickied threads, the one regarding the intro deal for Carrara 8.5 being extended, the reduction in price for upgrading is from any version. So if you have Carrara 5, you can still get the upgrade pricing. So one alternate route is to check Amazon for the first edition of "Figures, Characters, and Avatars" book, by Les Pardew, which comes with Carrara 6 Pro and Hexagon 2 for free. Then you'd still need to contact DAZ 3D to get the S/N and so on, but it might be another route. When I used that route, DAZ still sold that book - so I got my upgrades all taken care of before the book ever even arrived.

I must say this, however... Carrara has certainly been a great move for me. I am very happy to be using it ;)

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Thanks Dartanbeck.

I have spent this week investigating how best to animate characters created in Poser. I think I may have underestimated DS and ignored Carrera for a long time.

evilproducer

DS has some nice animation features, but they're mostly related to pre-canned animations like Aniblocks. There's nothing wrong with that at all. I use them some myself on occasion. Where DS is hobbled is that you can't directly work with keyframes (unless there's a plugin or they changed something in the latest version).

Carrara can work with Aniblocks (I think it's a plugin), as well as generate it's own NLA clips (somewhat like an Aniblock), which can be moved around the time line, layered, etc.

Carrara also has many different tweeners, a graph editor for keyframes (which has been enhanced for C8.5) and many more animation features.

Additionally, nearly anything can be animated in Carrara, from deformers to textures.

My youtube channel has a variety of animation tests I've done over the years. All done in Carrara.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Evilproducer01

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Well, I bought Carrara Pro. DAZ took my money, no problem. The Install Manager installed it in the wrong place, somehow without creating any uninstall entries in the Windows Uninstall panel, no problem. Now, Carrara is asking for a Serial Number, which I have not been given. Swell. This should only take a day or two to fix.

BTW, I looked at your videos. I liked the fire. Anyone who doesn't like it should go look at a real fire instead.

wetcircuit

At one point (around Carrara5) it seemed like Carrara was for stills and Carrara Pro was for animations, but it really isn't that clear at all - certainly not now. Originally there was only one Carrara and it did it all, when it split into Pro and "standard" they didn't really cripple the standard by removing animation, so it was never a clear path to begin with…. In general the *new* features have gone to Pro (which is why Pro has the animated Ocean, not because it animates but because it was a "new" feature).

In a very general sense Pro is better for a workflow that involves other programs, like how you would work with projects in a small art studio environment: like more import/export options, and the multi-pass renderer which can render an "unmixed" Photoshop comp of the final image for post-production manipulation…. The "Pro" meant it was beefed up for a profesional environment where you needed to send files and renders in "industry" formats.

Pro has some extra modeling tools too, so again there is not a clear message of what is "pro" and what is "standard" other than Pro has more features…. Standard is still capable of rendering all those features, but it doesn't have the controls for them…

Programs like Vue I notice how anything less than "Pro" or "Executive" or whatever they call all their tiers, you are really dealing with a crippled program, with things like HDR image-based lighting removed and no spherecam or crippled output resolution…. Carrara was originally built to do it all, so there wasn't this clear philosophy of tiered features...

evilproducer

Rottenham said:

Well, I bought Carrara Pro. DAZ took my money, no problem. The Install Manager installed it in the wrong place, somehow without creating any uninstall entries in the Windows Uninstall panel, no problem. Now, Carrara is asking for a Serial Number, which I have not been given. Swell. This should only take a day or two to fix.

BTW, I looked at your videos. I liked the fire. Anyone who doesn't like it should go look at a real fire instead.

The serial number is on-line in your DAZ account. I'm not sure where exactly, as I haven't bought anything that required a serial number since the store was rebuilt.

Ah! I just looked! There's a My Serial numbers link. Have you checked to see if Carrara's was there?

frank0314

My Carrara SN is in "My Serial Numbers"

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I found the SNs. The program opens fine. Man, I would like to be a UI Nazi. The 4K monitors are going to force most applications to adapt a scalable UI. That won't happen soon enough for me. 2560x1440 on a 27" screen makes text on most UIs look like fly specs.

So far, I like the controls. It's easy to move the camera around. The PZ3 import filter works well too. I've found a couple of other things I like too. I need to make friends with the user guide now.

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Thanks for being friendly and quick to help.. I appreciate it. I will need your help in learning this program.

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