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Difference between Carrara 7 and 8?

Strange VoyagerStrange Voyager Posts: 390
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

Hi all,

I have searched for this information and have not been successful. If I am basically just using Gen 4 figures and earlier, is there a compelling reason to use 8 (not 8.5) rather than 7? I ask because I'm setting up a pipeline for a relatively lengthy project, and though I haven't hit the limits of 7 yet (and am not sure I will, honestly), I wanted to make sure I'm not missing out by sticking with that instead of 8. The reason I chose 7 is because it will do everything I need, including IGES import, and many people have said that 8 is broken in ways that 7 isn't.

To be honest, I don't know what's broken in 8 as I have used the program so little. What is broken in 8 that's not broken in 7, and what features have been implemented in 8 that weren't in 7?

Thank you in advance.

Comments

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited September 2013

    C8.1 has a memory leak that had been fixed in C8.5Beta. It effects both Mac and PC, although Mac was very bad to the point you could not animate anything without quickly running out of memory.... I am not entirely sure about the C8.5 final release. I am getting WAY more frequent crashes than the last version of the beta, but I have not narrowed down any specific cause (I think it is related to the 3D Preview on Mac). At least one other user has mentioned what may be a memory leak, and I have also experienced my main HDD running out of free disc space while Carrara is rendering (possibly related to the Carrara QT module that launches while rendering to QT)

    Other than that, I don't think either C8 or C8.5 are "broken". That is a uselessly vague term.... There may be specific issues but it is obviously not "broken", as you can plainly see by all the current renders people are posting. YMMV

    7.2 is a very stable version. If it does what you want there is no *need* for you to switch. Also, 7.2 will continue to work as before, even if you have C8 or C8.5 installed, so having the newer versions does not effect your ability to go back to using 7.2...

    There are many reasons you might find C8.5 better - especially 64bit. If you are animating, there are some tweaks to the graph editor and timeline that may interest you, and audio is very very very much improved in the C8/8.5 timeline.

    Post edited by wetcircuit on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    Thanks for that information Holly. I find it very helpful. Regarding your QT bug suspicion, have you tried rendering to an image sequence to see if it still happens?

  • Strange VoyagerStrange Voyager Posts: 390
    edited December 1969

    Thank you. That was very helpful. I think I will stick with 7 for now, and move to 8 or 8.5 if (more likely when) I need those features.


    holly wetcircuit said:
    C8.1 has a memory leak that had been fixed in C8.5Beta. It effects both Mac and PC, although Mac was very bad to the point you could not animate anything without quickly running out of memory.... I am not entirely sure about the C8.5 final release. I am getting WAY more frequent crashes than the last version of the beta, but I have not narrowed down any specific cause (I think it is related to the 3D Preview on Mac). At least one other user has mentioned what may be a memory leak, and I have also experienced my main HDD running out of free disc space while Carrara is rendering (possibly related to the Carrara QT module that launches while rendering to QT)

    Other than that, I don't think either C8 or C8.5 are "broken". That is a uselessly vague term.... There may be specific issues but it is obviously not "broken", as you can plainly see by all the current renders people are posting. YMMV

    7.2 is a very stable version. If it does what you want there is no *need* for you to switch. Also, 7.2 will continue to work as before, even if you have C8 or C8.5 installed, so having the newer versions does not effect your ability to go back to using 7.2...

    There are many reasons you might find C8.5 better - especially 64bit. If you are animating, there are some tweaks to the graph editor and timeline that may interest you, and audio is very very very much improved in the C8/8.5 timeline.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    evilproducer said:
    Thanks for that information Holly. I find it very helpful. Regarding your QT bug suspicion, have you tried rendering to an image sequence to see if it still happens?

    It only happened to me once.... And I had run a soft body sim about 30-40x... And I had a jillion other programs open :/ not the best way to troubleshoot. lol. I rendered the entire scene again and did not get the error, and even WITH the error Carrara successfully finished the render, so I have nothing concrete.... After shutting down Carrara my startup drive magically regained almost 100GB, so it seems like a memory leak, but haven't reproduced it....

    Release version of C8.5 *seems* less stable to me than Beta (.204), the major difference is now I can use the spot render tool again - except on the softbody sim, the 3D Preview shows it very well, but the spotrender shows nothing.... Also weird behavior with the zoom tool, and one time my curser disappeared altogether. Restarting Carrara fixed it.

    I also have discovered several old scenes C8.5 will not open. They crash at specific points % of the scene load, so it is something in the scene, I suspect specific a plugin. I have to get to my old computer, not sure if these scenes were made in C7.2 or C8.1, but I still have them loaded somewhere.

    I'm not sure if there is a real bug thread for us to start comparing notes. Thought about starting one at Cafe, but don't have scene files together for it yet... Not trying to scare people off C8.5. I've been working in new (for me) areas of the program: like the soft body which is pretty cool stuff.

  • Box8068_31c338ee4bBox8068_31c338ee4b Posts: 292
    edited December 1969

    Holly
    I haven't heard about the audio improvements.
    How is it better?
    ( I use large audio clips often)
    Thanks
    8068

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    8068 said:
    Holly
    I haven't heard about the audio improvements.
    How is it better?
    ( I use large audio clips often)
    Thanks
    8068

    It plays better as preview, and you can have multiple tracks of audio (not sure when that feature was introduced). If you have Mimic you can select the audio track you want to process, and you can slide them around in the timeline, so multiple talking characters, music, and sound-fx are possible. You can "lock" an audio track so it is always visible at the bottom of the sequencer (helpful for animating and cuing).

  • FetitoFetito Posts: 481
    edited December 1969

    Mmmm, what are the exact improvments between Cararara 8 and 8.5?

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    patrickgobels said:
    Mmmm, what are the exact improvments between Cararara 8 and 8.5?

    It's mostly the native DSON module for handling Genesis, but there are some timeline improvements and a lot of actions are now available as keyboard shortcuts.... There are bug fixes as well.... I started an incomplete list of new features in 8.5 here:
    http://carraracafe.com/forum-3/?cid=1&show=513
  • FetitoFetito Posts: 481
    edited December 1969

    Huzzah! Thank you, holly wetcircuit!

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,040
    edited December 1969

    patrickgobels said:
    Huzzah! Thank you, holly wetcircuit!

    Be sure to check out Holly's awesome tutorials, which are available at her website linked to in her signature. The sun tutorial is my fav.

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