Carrara vs Vue vs Bryce vs ?
arcady
Posts: 340
For a few months down the road - I'll be looking to upgrade one of these from where my applications left off in 2006/8.
For Daz Studio users, looking to do outdoor scenes or to take advantage of plant generation and some of the athmospherics / etc...
How do these three stack up against each other?
- How does plant generation compare?
- How do their lighting tools compare?
- Which can best handle importing a Daz-Studio file?
- Which can best handle importing a Poser file?
- Any notable differences in the quality of renders indoor / outdoor?
Do they really offer enough above just Daz to even bother with?
Is there instead some fourth application I should be considering rather than one of these?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
If you are going to be transferring stuff from Studio, The least expensive route would be Bryce. It is very good at outdoor landscapes and it has a Studio Bridge. At about 20 dollars, it's a good deal. Vue has a Personal Learning Edition, if you want to get first hand experience for free. It's main drawback is that it is module based. You have the core program and then you add modules to extend it. To create plants you need Botanica, To import your DAZ and Poser content you need the Import module, etc. Bryce does all that for less than the price of one of the modules. Now, if you can deal with the limitations of the PLE version of Vue, You'll be all set, as that is the FULL version, Vue Infinite. Full price is around 1,000 dollars. Now, Carrara . Carrara is like Studio, Bryce, and a few other programs combined. If you want to make your own models, Carrara can do that. As well as Dynamic hair, Physics, and Particles.
Ultimately, if you want to stick with outdoor scenes, try the Vue PLE, or Bryce. Both produce some very good landscapes and atmospheres. Check out Youtube for videos on them. If you start leaning towords one of them, keep an eye on their site, all have some very good sales at times.
Gus
For Vue I say aim for complete version as you will spend more upgrading the Frontier to get EcoSystem, EcoPainting etc than it costs on a decent sale (40% off from time to time).
Bryce is great but there are issues if you use Mac OS X > 10.6, and Bryce being 32 bit is a fair limitation.
Carrara can also create great results.
I think it's a matter of taste (what program works best for you). I got them All but for me Vue is the one where I can get a great result with the least amount of work, which is good for me and my limited time budget.
+1
I also have them all, and like the most Daz Studio, Vue and Bryce.
For outdoor scenes or taking advantage of plant generation, I use Vue 2014 complete.
I have just upgraded it, to take the advantage of Plant Factory, that I have bought last year.
I have imported both Daz Studio files and Poser files to Vue and they works pretty well.
One need to adjust materials in Vue to get even better results.
I also love Bryce for its simplicity, but have not managed to create any breath taking scenes in it so far.
I use Carrara mostly for rendering ready made scenes, that I have bought or downloaded for free.
I would like to use Carrara more often, but my brain is out of sync with its tools so far :)
I am so glad I am not the only one. I do try and then I give up and go back to using the one that is my fave
I won't bother saying which that is, I think it may be obvious :coolsmirk:
I am so glad I am not the only one. I do try and then I give up and go back to using the one that is my fave
I won't bother saying which that is, I think it may be obvious :coolsmirk:
Looking at your post it looks like your fav is Afpelstrudel 2.0
I use DAZ Studio everyday. Great piece of software. It can do a lot. I've been using Bryce since it was a Metacreation product, it has a great historical place in the evolution of 3D Art. Carrara, as Artini mentioned it is great for rendering premade scenes like Howie Farkes Landscapes, but I also use it for its physics engine which functions quite well. But I like the look of renders that Vue delivers. I only have Frontier at this point, but the results are nudging me along to pick up Complete eventually.
As Totte mentioned, you have to connect with the User interface, it should be intuitive, because creating art should be fun.
About what I ment with "the tool that fits you best", Carrara is good but seems to be incompatible with my brainwaves..
Close, but no cigar :coolsmirk:
Good, I don't smoke ;-)
Tools I already own include the latest version of Bryce pro - but I'm a Mac user so I haven't installed it. I DO have a bootcamp windows partition so I plan to put it there and see what I get. I know I played with it some years back and liked it.
Vue 6 Infinite - I bought this in 2006 right before life got super busy and I left 3D. Which means I spent all that money on a tool I then never used (it was an upgrade from Vue 5, upgraded from 4, upgraded from 3 - so I have used Vue a LOT in the past).
Carrara 5 - I am sure I have this, I know I did renders with it in the past. But I cannot find my copy. Eovia is long since gone and have taken any registration I did for it with them (and I'm not even sure that is where I bought it).
Right as I left each of these was getting plant tools or already had them.
Wanted to see some general opinions before setting a stage for what I have - because I'm thinking I should approach this from the view of get the best one for me, not the one that is my cheapest upgrade path.
I see myself wanting to do a lot of urban street shots that show sky in the background - this I can likely pull off inside of Daz. But then a lot of woodland shots, in thick foliage - and that's where I wonder over options.
I guess it comes down to - which will maintain my shader work the best when importing from Daz3d?
And can any of them keep my lighting or is it just 'import an obj file and set everything up all over again' like I used to do back with Vue 3 through 5?
I hope, you have seen the forum thread about Perspective Distortion in Daz Studio
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/44176/
It can be important when rendering urban street shots in it.
As already mentioned, Bryce have a bridge connection,
that helps with transferring scenes from Daz Studio.
As far as I know, there is no other program that maintain Daz Studio shaders in 100%.
You always need to adjust them in the other programs.
Vue can open Poser scenes and use Poser shaders in its scenes,
if you have a Poser installed in your computer.
Just made a test and rendered http://www.daz3d.com/deco-bus-stop
in Poser Pro 2014, saved the scene in it and imported that scene
to Vue Complete 2014 and choosen to render with Poser materials.
Even that they claim, Vue can render Poser materials,
the renders look pretty different to me, even if one consider
the light setups differs (I used in both programs default settings for it).
Rendered in Poser Pro 2014.
File size 903 KB
Rendered in Vue Complete 2014
File size 6534 KB
For landscape generation VUE is in a class by itself. In fact, even the older versions of VUE with eco-systems from five years ago are still better than the latest versions of most newer products. On the flip side, most of the latest features added to VUE are far more than most people will ever need and Eon troops out new versions almost annually, so staying up to date can be really expensive.
At the other end of the scale, Bryce is dirt cheap but effectively at an evolutionary dead end. It can produce gorgeous results, but without support from DAZ, it's going to fall further and further behind. For someone just starting out, though, it's a great deal.
As for Carrara, though... It's not a terrible program, per se, but at this point I think it's on life support. The release of 8.5 was so insignificant in terms of new features that DAZ didn't even bother to update the information on most of the sale pages and the promo video, there's still no dynamic cloth and the one "big" new feature, compatibility with Genesis, is something that really should have been a free upgrade given that it's needed to makes DAZ's current generations of product usable.
Disclaimer: Carrara is my favorite 3D application, but hopefully my comments will be more or less unbiased ;-)
With Carrara, IMHO, in most cases, you would be better off to set up your scene in Carrara, though some people prefer posing and scene set up in DS, saving the scene, then opening (not importing) it in Carrara. Carrara has the ability to open a scene set up in DS, and you will be able to refine poses, add content, etc. just like in DS (but you will be better off using Carrara lights, and deleteing DS lighting) You can pose your figures, add cloths, etc. directly in Carrara, it's not dependent on DS or Poser for scene set-up.
I don't think that any of the three can do a perfect translation of DS shaders. I really can't speak for Vue or Bryce, but Carrara does a decent job on simple shaders. Regardless, for best results, you will need to set up the shaders in the app you end up choosing to get the best results.
Creating sky/clouds for scene backgrounds is very simple in Carrara, as is using HDRI (for both backgrounds and lighting). Carrara definitely isn't as good/efficient at creating landscapes as Vue Complete or Vue Infinite, but with a litle work you can get fantastic results. Here are some great examples by Howie Farkes - http://www.daz3d.com/howiefarkes
Plugins to external render engines may be another factor to consider, especially if your interested in high performance GPU based unbiased rendering. DS has a plugin for Octane Render, and one is in developement for Carrara. The big plus here is that you will be able to use the same render engine for both applications, which means you will also be using the same shader and lighting system. There are also plugins for LuxRender (open source unbiased render engine) for both DS (Reality and Luxus) and Carrara (Luxus). Right now, LuxRender is primarily CPU based, and is much slower than Octane. But the Hybrid Renderer (CPU+GPU) is getting faster, and the GPU only version of Lux is under active development (but isn't really ready for prime time yet). Neither Bryce or Vue have plugins for Octane or Lux, and there has been no talk of plugin development that I know of.
Edit: I forgot to add this, a link to a thread in the Carrara Forum to various Carrara user galleries.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42201/
Thank you, dustrider, for pointing up that one can open full scene created with Daz Studio in Carrara.
That way I can setup the scene easily with Daz Studio, save it and then open it in Carrara
for further tweaking. I am fine with that.
Do not get me wrong, I have Carrara for many years (I think my first version was Carrara 2, now 8.5)
but never got enough experience to set up more advanced scenes in it.
That frustration put me away from Carrara and I have not bothered used it more often,
except for rendering ready made scenes, that I have bought or downloaded for free.
Just a simple test. I have rendered http://www.daz3d.com/canal-street
with all defaults in Daz Studio 4.6, saved it as a scene and opened that scene in Carrara 8.5.
I like the results. Just need to spend more time in Carrara to fix the lights and materials.
Daz Studio 4.6 Pro render.
Rendering time: 31 minutes 38.98 seconds
Carrara Pro 8.5 render.
Rendering time: 2 minutes 23 seconds
Glad my post helped! It looks like that set has a sky dome, which tends to block some lights. You can turn it off (select it, then un-check the visible check mark), then use Carrara's realistic sky's to render (make sure to turn on Sky Light under Global Illumination in the Render Room). A simple way to use realistic skies would be to first open one of the sky presets, then add your scene (if using the content browser, just drag your scene into your open preset scene, if your scene was saved in DS, use File>Import to import the .duf into the scene) and turn off the sky dome. Render times will slow down a bit using realistic skies, but usually the results are worth the wait.
You could also use the Sky dome for lighting the scene. This is a bit more complicated process (you need to enable the glow channel for the skydome shadar), Let me know if your interested.
Fenric has some great plugins for Carrara to help with using DAZ/Poser content. He has a store here (http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=fenric) or you can do a Google search for "fenric carrara" and find his web site. His "Shader Doctor" plugin is fantastic for quickly "fixing" shaders in large scenes like the one you used (often they are a bit to glossy or shiny). You can get Shader Doctor alone on his website, or as part of his "Shader Power Tools for Carrara" bundle available here at DAZ.
Hope this helps, and doesn't just confuse you even more.
Those are some nice Carrara renders.
My takeaway at the moment seems to be that Vue comes out with an upgrade every year and wants you to mortgage the family home to buy it.
Carrara is on life-support, seemingly on the verge of being the next Bryce, but has some nice renders too.
Bryce is loved by its users, but owned by a company that doesn't seem to even know they own it.
...
This sound about like how it was in 2006.
I bought Carrara 1.0 - so I am familiar with that application being neglected. Metacreations sold that sucker to me, and then pointed out that it was in fact I who was the sucker. Then they got out of 3D apps to become the lead developer of animated gif banner adds and I laughed back...
And then I bought Carrara 5 right before Eovia went under... (haven't found my CD yet still, but I did find an old message I posted somewhere saying "hey guys, my copy just arrived in the mail - which I guess means my serial number is in a box in my garage somewhere).
64-bit might be appealing too. And its not just an environment builder / renderer but also a modeling app so I could keep pretending I will someday be a 3D modeler. :)
Its a little concerning that Carrara 8 seems to have come out 4 years ago. A bit of an opposite of the Vue situation - and even though Bryce feels 'abandoned' due to the Mac issue, version 7 of Bryce is similar in age.
But getting back on the Vue bandwagon might be pricey.
(I do not get how Daz manages to keep its Mac version of Carrara and Daz3d running in current versions of OSX, but cannot do that for Bryce...)
I started with Carrara 2, so I'm quite comfortable with it. I wish I could say something about version 9, but DAZ seems to be very unwilling to give us any news on 9 - good or bad. I have 8.5 Pro, and am quite happy with it. 8.5 Pro was actually on a one day sale a couple of weeks ago for around $50 (don't remember the exact price - just know it was lees than I paid to upgrade), so If your patient, you might be able to get it at an excellent price.
One of the things I really like about Carrara is that I can do just about anything in it. If your working on a scene and need a quick and simple prop - you just make it. For example, entered this months challenge, and I needed a glass dome for a display plinth I wanted to use. No problem, it took me about 5 min. to make one in the vertex modeler, put it in place, and add one of the sample glass shaders that comes with Carrara to it. Much easier than using an external modeling application to do the same thing!
The render engine in Carrara is also very good, and quite fast. In photorealistic mode with full ray tracing and GI enabled, it can give results very comparable to Lux Render or Octane. In fact, I have Luxus for Carrara, but don't use it much simply because native Carraras renderer is so good that I typically don't want to spend the extra time on shader set up and rendering to get the minor quality improvements using Lux (but some things are noticeably better, but very few). Once the Octane plugin for Carrara becomes available, I will be using it a lot. Render times should be comparable or much faster than Carrara when using Photorealistic with GI and caustics. I have Octane with the DS plugin (sorry - no Mac version of Octane Render, but since you did say that you would be using windows on your mac as well, I thought this might be worth noting). The near real-time feedback of what the final render will look like any time you make a change to shaders, positioning, etc. really speeds up overall work flow when using Octane, and the results are outstanding.
Another plus for Carrara is that you can load/use Genesis and Genesis2 directly in Carrara. It's not as good as DS or 100% trouble free yet, but many things do work quite well in 8.5 (often items that don't want to behave properly in Carrara can be set up in DS, saved, then opened in Carrara and everything with work as expected).
Vue is a great landscape software, and the higher end versions are quite impressive both in features and results (I have Infinite 8, and Studio 2014). But the cost of keeping current can be a killer (that's why I have an old copy of infinite, and only Studio 2014), and IMHO, the ease of use for DAZ/Poser content in Carrara is much better. If Howie Farkes scenes fit you outdoor render needs, then Carrara might be a good fit. In 64bit, it can definitely handle very large and complex scenes. Here is a scene I did on a 4GB laptop in Carrara with 3 V4's, 3 M4's, Faverals Medeval Dock, and several additional props, so on a better rig, you should have no problem creating epic scenes (warning - nudity http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2260952&user_id=180561).
I have Carrara 8 Pro and it would make a fine paperweight if it had come in a package. I've had the opportunity to upgrade it to 8.5 Pro for $26 several times now and still haven't bothered. It's not the worst purchase I've ever made in 3D, but there's simply nothing it does that can't be done better by other programs in the same or even significantly lower price ranges. Does it have a nice render engine? Yes, but Lux and Octane are both arguably better and you can roll into those from DS just as easily for less. Does it have dynamic hair? Yes, but no dynamic clothing. In the end, Carrarra wants to be a Swiss army knife, but half of the blades are missing...
Hmm.....I would like to get a list of the programs that can do what Carrara does for the same or lower price range so I have an alternate in case it is needed in the future. I'm sure others would like this list as well. For the sake of argument, lets use the PC price of $119.70, as anyone who know DAZ, will know the best way to purchase stuff here is with a PC membership Well, on second thought maybe $220.00 would be a better number to offset any costs associated with getting a PC membership. Below is a list of features said program would need to have, as these are features I use in Carrara.
1) Native support for DAZ/Poser content. Meaning that the figures need to be pose-able, use the native morphs, and be able to auto-conform clothing, hair, etc. I don't want to use simple figure hosting similar to Poser Fusion, or export from DS to application X - Been there, done that, don't want to anymore.
2) The ability to save material presets for figures & re-apply to the same or other characters of the figure
3) Landscape generation
4) Plant creation
5) Dynamic Hair
6) Easy use of very large DEM (elevation/terrains) data generated from high resolution LiDAR data. Note: Granted, this is through Ground Control, a $30.00 plugin, but Vue Infinite chokes on the DEM's I need to use, and Vue Studio just gives me a terrain with no elevation using anything with any relevant size. To use them I have to import the data in tiles, then try to place the tiles in their proper location (x,y,and z) manually,
7) Vertex and spline based modeling
8) Basic UV mapping
9) Rudimentary 3D and displacement painting
10) Instancing
11) Realistic sky creation
12) GI, caustics, true ray tracing
13) Ability to use HDRI for scene lighting and background
14) Render passes
15) Fog
16) Area/mesh lights
17) Animation
18) A function similar to Puppeteer
19) Complex procedural shaders
20) Figure rigging
21) Bullet Physics (or comparable)
I'm sure there is more that should be added to the list, but this should be good for starters.
Blender would be an outstanding alternative, if there was support for DAZ/Poser content. This seems to be the weak point in many of the potential alternatives I've looked into, with price being the other. C4D would be a fantastic alternative, but to get everything that Carrara has you would have to purchase the Studio edition, and at over $3,500, it's a bit out of my price range.
Is Carrara perfect? No, not by any means, but then neither are any of the other 3D applications I use. But Carrara has an integrated set of tools and I really appreciate the fact that I can use them without needing to fire up another application. Are they all as good as a dedicated application (i.e. a dedicated modeler)? No, but they get the job done most of the time. If I need a better 3D paint application, I use Blacksmith 3D, if I need features not fount in Carrara's modeler, I use Hex. If I need dynamic cloths, I use DS or Poser. But for my needs, which are no doubt different than yours, and others as well, Carrara is a fantastic tool for what I want to do. But as noted, I do use other applications as well, because none of the tools in my price range "do it all".
Here:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2882741
Reading that Carrara cannot load in any of the newer Daz3d content. True/untrue?
there is Casual script that is awesome : mcjTeleBlender - render Daz Strudio scenes and animations using Blender’s Cycles Render Engine see there : http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/2877/
I own Carrara 8 and 8.5 and I find it hard to use, maybe because I started with studio... But I find poser even more alien...
I haven't had any issues with any of the G2F content I've purchased in the last 6 months. All poses, cloths, mats, and characters have worked perfectly. Maybe I've just been very lucky, or Stan has been very unlucky. You would think that there would be more questions/complaints in the Carrara forum here if "most" of the content produced in the last six months didn't work properly. Maybe it's an issue caused by where or how his content is installed. He installs everything manually to I think, his "My Library", all of mine is installed via DIM to "My DAZ 3D Library", so there may be some hard coded paths in the non-working content to the "My DAZ 3D Library". I do know that there were some major issues with a couple of items that were released with Aiko 6, but don't remember which ones (there is a thread in the Carrara forum here about it). There is also a thread in the Carrara forum about issues people have experienced with content, and how to fix them (or not).
A quick look at the "List Your Carrara Issues Here" thread in the Carrara forum here will give you an excellent idea about the problems/bugs in Carrara 8.5. Based on the level of negativity in the "other" forum, I was quite surprised by how few real issues have been posted in the "post your Issues" thread here (I thought maybe I was very lucky not to have had loads of problems, until I saw how few problems there really were).
Keep in mind that DAZ has stated that Genesis 2 compatibility in Carrara 8.5 is not complete (or something similar). However, I've had very few issues using G2F with G2F content, Genesis content, and V4 content (other than the shoes issue that everyone has). Again, I may just be very lucky.
One thing to consider, I have read about problems with Carrara on Mac's that PC users don't experience. So this may be an important factor in your decision making process. There are a few people who post here successfully using Carrara on Macs. It might be worth posting a query about using Carrara on Macs in in the Carrara forum.
Having used Carrara before, the following probably doesn't apply in your case, but for anyone else reading this thread it is important to note that because Carrara does have more tools and capabilities than DS or Poser, there is also a greater leaning curve. The increased learning curve in addition to things being a bit different in how functions are accessed/used, where they are located, different terminology, and a lot more options to confuse the new user, means that it does take a fair amount of effort and time to feel comfortable in Carrara.
"cannot load any of the newer content..." is an absurd exaggeration. If you look through the Carrara galleries you will find people who successfully use Genesis and Genesis 2 M and F. There are even products made for Genesis, Genesis 2s, the new dragon, etc. specifically for use in Carrara. See this DAZ PA vendor's store. http://www.daz3d.com/ringomonfort
Furthermore, an artist used the Genesis 2 female in Carrara to win round 1 of the miss renderosity pageant. See http://www.renderosity.com/mod/contest/index.php?entry_id=34778
That is a far cry from Genesis and Genesis 2 and their content don't work in Carrara.