[MW Forums]

Eovia Corp. on Monday announced that it is shipping the international English edition of Carrara 4, its 3D rendering, modeling and animation tool for Mac and Windows. The new version of Carrara 4 Standard sports new terrain and sky modules, texture and lighting controls, improved rendering, inverse kinematics, motion paths and timeline support. A Pro version adds advanced features including sound support, 3D and vector motion blur, blurry reflections, extended import capabilities and more. Carrara 4 Standard costs US$299; Carrara 4 Pro costs $599. System requirements call for a G3/266MHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.1 or later, 128MB RAM, 300MB hard disk space. more

[Uncle_Deercamp]

Okay, seriously folks. Can anyone please recommend the best 3D program for the Mac?

[Grapho]

It's not that easy. It's kind of like recommending a Car. It depends what you are going to be doing with it, and how much you want to spend. You would not buy a Porsche do go camping, now would you? Maya is the most complete and comprehensive package on the market, but just for the entry level package it will set you back $2000 dollars. It is not intuitive or easy to use. It is meant to be used as a collective team suite, not a single user package, although I am sure that some people have mastered enough of it do be using it alone. Lightwave or Cinema are considered mid-hi end, and at least in the case of Cinema you can buy it in parts depending on your needs. Now Carrara is a very good starting point if you are going to be a serious hobbits, it has enough power to do professional work and it is very intuitive. You will not get the supper hi-end features you get with the other offerings, but it will cost you only a fraction of there price tags. You will still be preoccupied with it a very long time learning all it's features. Bang for the Buck, Carrara fears very well against it's competition.

[NeoX]

Go with Carrara, you will not be disappointed. It has a solid render engine, good modeling tools, easy to learn, and has a great community behind it.

[tallscot]

Carrara is crap. I paid for version 2 and version 3, and it's a joke. Their Mac support is seriously lacking. There are serious bugs carried over. For example, you can't even use your OpenGL video card. That's not a joke. The software preview is faster than Carrara's OpenGL implementation. This was the case in version 2 and I paid money hoping version 3 fixed that. It didn't. There are other bugs and problems with this application and just don't get fixed.
Lightwave 8, by far, gives you the most bang for the buck. Cinema is a good application too, but it costs way too much money when you add all the modules required to bring it up to Lightwave's features.
If you want to do 3D for a living and be a professional 3D animator to be hired, get Maya. Maya has the most freelance jobs and the most full-time jobs listings.
If you want to work for yourself and the application you use doesn't matter, I recommend Lightwave.
For the less expensive packages, I've heard a lot of good things about a Mac-only application called Pixels 3D ($100). I haven't used it, though.
I'd get Strata 3D CX or the base Cinema 4D before I'd buy Carrara 4.
Also, look at how much it costs to upgrade these applications. Upgrades will add up to more money than the initial cost of these applications over a few years, and some of these developers charge a lot more than others.
But again, if you want to get a job with a company doing 3D, Maya is the one to learn. You can get the learning edition for free. Download it and buy the DVD and a book and you will be on your way.

[Grapho]

I would recommend Carrara over Lightwave. For the price of admission to Lightwave, you can get 3 full blown licenses of Carrara 4. It includes Amapi Designer 7 for a very comprehensive modeler. This Open GL thing is dependent on the video card you use. It works fine on my system.

[tallscot]

Carrara 4 Pro is $599. Lightwave 8 can be had with promotions for around $995. Strata 3D CX and Cinema 4D R9 are $695. There is academic pricing too.
The OpenGL bug is a known issue. The software renderer is faster than OpenGL no matter which card you have on a current Mac.

[Grapho]

I will not dispute that Lightwave is more powerful than Carrara, but with out the promotional or educational offer, it cost 3 times more, and it's not 3 times better. Besides, do you have Carrara 4? I don't think so... Check out there web site, it dose have some interesting features. Getting back to my car analogy, Carrara is like a good reliable compact car, Lightwave is like a Luxury Sedan, Maya is like a Bentley or Rolls-Royce, not everybody has the time or money to drive a Luxury Sedan. I have been using Carrara for several years, even when it was RayDream/Infini-D. Check out "Rust Boy", by Brian Taylor. This is proof that the tools don't make the artist, it is quite the contrary. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif