Carrera question
Bendinggrass
Posts: 1,367
I was reading about Carrera, especially as it is now on sale.
In images I have seen rendered by Carrera, there is a different "feel" compared to other render engines.
It appears to be extremely realistic as regards light and skin tone/texture.
Could someone please talk about this, especially in comparison to D4 and Poser 2012.
Appologies if I have posed in the wrong forum. I thought this might be helpful for many of us not familiar with Carrera, and so reach many of us through this Forum category... Commons.
R
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Comments
Carrara has it's own render engine as well as it's own lighting tools. Carrara will use HDRI and many other tools to build realism in a rendering. See Carraracafe.com for more information on how the tools work with video tutorials etc.
I use Carrara, DS, and Poser, and prefer to render in Carrara. For renders with "equivalent" settings (at least a close as possible) Carrara blows the doors off of DS and Poser 8/Pro2010. I haven't tried any real comparison tests with Poser9/Pro2012, but from the simple renders I've played with so far, Carrara still feels faster.
I think that SSS (using Snarlygribly's script) for skin is better in Poser, but I've seen some outstanding results in Carrara and DS (you just have to work a bit more on the shaders). Poser doesn't have caustics, and DS renders them at a glacial speed, so Carrara wins hands down there. Typically you will have to tweak materials/shaders in Carrara to make them look like they do in DS or Poser, but the material/shader system in Carrara is pretty easy to come to grips with. I find lighting easier in Carrara than DS or Poser. Using HDRI images for lighting and reflections is very easy in Carrara, and is setting up Global Illumination (GI or IDL in Poser terms) is very easy. In fact, Carrara it handles lights much more like an unbiased render engine when GI is enabled than Poser.
Of the three, I find Poser the most difficult to get good renders out of, and Carrara the easiest, but that's just me, your mileage may vary. Bottom line, Carrara does have a very very good render engine. You should download the trial version and give it a test run to see how well you get along with it. If your interested, you can take a look at my gallery at Rendo (link in my sig below) to compare renders from the same person using all three apps (only 2 Poser renders though - like I said, it's the most difficult for me).
I use Carrara because it has the biggest nose of all the programs considered in this thread.
And because it has the coolest render engine of the lot!
But ... what is this "realism" thing of which you speak?
I have used all three but was a convert to Carrara a few years ago because of its great (and easy to use) lighting and fast renderer. I haven't used the latest version of Poser and I have noticed a marked improvement in the realism of the renders it produces. DS with the Reality plugin can also produce amazingly realistic renders, but it is slow, unless you have a powerful and up-to-date machine. I now just prefer working in Carrara - it is my 3D "home"!
What do you want to get out of your renders? And the second question: how long you are willing to wait for it?
In Studio you have the alternative of Reality (= easiest way to go with Lux render), but it takes time. Lot's off.
The standard renderer in Studio is quite capable of photo-realistic renders if you're capable of dealing with renderman shaders and have the time to wait until it's finished. (Maybe as slow as Lux if using a lot of lights.)
Poser's Firefly is in my opinion simply to slow. Everytime I started a render in Poser (from Poser 7 to Pro 2012) with the standard three-point-lighting it took ages until the render started and even then it wasn't the fastest one (faster maybe than 3Delight, but not so much).
Carrara is faster. Not as fast a Modo or C4D, what I've heard, but it's fast: if you're going for 100 lights with raytraced soft shadows it will be slow. If you're going for 100 lights with soft shadow maps it's fast. If you avoid Indirect Lighting and go instead for a 200 lights lightdome (for exterior scenes): Carrara is fast.If you're lazy and do everything with Skylight, Indirect Light etc. you'll have to wait Maybe Carrara would be even slower than 3delight, Lux or Firefly.
Nevertheless: to get the best result in the least time: buy Jeremy Birn's standard book on rendering and lighting.
PS: Regardless of DAZ' Brian's advice: carraracafe (or something) is dead; simply ask your questions on the regular Carrara forum.
It is generally the case with any 3D renderer that the better / more realistic the lighting, the longer a render will take. And using light domes with a lot of lights can be just as slow (or slower) than using Carrara's SkyLight, depending on what is being rendered and the parameters used. But in general, Carrara's renderer is faster than many other solutions.
I've used Studio, Poser, and Carrara.
I prefer using Carrara for most of my renders because of the speed it has. Carrara also lets me model and I can create very good landscapes for scenes with it.
I use DS for most of my cell style renders at the moment as I have a good number of shaders for that type of style. Most of the cell style stiff I've been doing lately has been head shots.
My PoserPro 2010 & PoserPro2012 both get lots of crashes so they don't get used often.
The exact program I use is more dictated by what I need to do and how much time I have to do it.
All 3 have pros & cons about them.