Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Another example of something I couldn't do in DS. In this image I created the glass cover for the display plinth in Carrara. Sure, I could have easily created it in Hex or another modeling application and imported it into DS, but why, when it is so easy to do it all in Carrara? This image was rendered using Carrara's internal renderer in about 4 hours, the original size of the render was 2400x1800 (then down sampled to post in the forums). Once again, the small image displayed below doesn't show the great detail/quality of the render, please click on it and enlarge it to the full 2000x1500 resolution
OK, one more and I will quite for a while. This definitely couldn't be done in DS, since it doesn't have a modeler. I modeled the the desk and lamp in Carrara, and 3dage did the rest of the scene (done while beta testing the Octane plugin for Carrara). This was rendered via the Octane plugin, but everything else was done in Carrara.
Yeah but can Carrara get you from one country to another? Does it taste as yummy as the noodles I'm eating right now? How many people can you fit inside a Carrara?
..something I couldn't do in Carrara for the following reasons: (rendered in Reality/Lux - test render)
SSS Skin Shaders on the girls (both G2F)
Complexion on the red haired girl (Skin Overlay which uses the LIE)
Morphs used for creating the girls
Clothing fits on girls (the brown hared one is wearing jeans and shoes for V4).
Mesh Lights (the cars' brake lights/turn signal, bus destination marquee, bus daytime headlmps, monitor in shelter).
Street texture (Shades of Life Urban Construct)
Accurate reflection in mirror on streetlamp post.
No two apps are the same and each person has different needs/wants.
Carrara does modeling where as DAZ Studio does not. Carrara was not designed to be a content driven platform where as DAZ Studio is.
Loading up one of Howie Farkes sets does not prove that Carrara is capable of some that DAZ Studio is not. DAZ Studio has a very good geometry engine and could support that scene very well. Infact, using geometry shells DAZ Studio could handle it even better. But thats a feature comparison, nothing more. DAZ Studio is also very capable of producing excellent work. Just because you dont see it does not mean its not true.
...the fact that Howie has taken an interest in Daz Studio to the point of reworking his Harpsburg set should say something. From the shots I've seen, it looks just as good.
Until there is better compatibility with Daz Studio, I'll be sticking to the latter (and Reality/Lux) for most of my illustration work
It isn't really a one or the other. They complement each other pretty well.
As for some of the things mentioned.
Autofit from V4 to Genesis 2 Female works, in Carrara, as long as you stay away from the feet. Or you can autofit in DS, save out the asset and use it directly on Genesis 2 Female in Carrara.
Trees/plants in Carrara are procedural and generated on the fly. You can turn one into "Real Geometry" and export them from Carrara then use them in DS and Instance them if you desire. Or with Baker, from Inagoni, turn them into splats (Carrara term) aka Billboards (DS Term) complete with Normal maps and use them in DS.
You can take Genesis 2 Female into Carrara and model clothing around her, take it back into DS and use the Transfer Utility to rig it.
Both can get to the Lux Render engine and Octane Render.
If you have to choose just one, then it is about how well you and the Interface get along, and what your actual goals are.
...without a real Daz -> Carrara bridge, it's petty much hit or miss when importing character presets and scene subsets. Regarding textures, Reality does a much better job at interpreting and translating Daz shaders/materials than Carrara does. To preserve morphs which do not transfer one could just save and import a character preset, clothing, and props as a .obj, but then all rigging is lost which may be necessary for making minor adjustments afterwards.
I have yet to have a Character preset not work in Carrara as saved in DS unless the Morphs involved are not saved to the same Content Library as the base figure, the same with morphs. (Which is the recommended way to set up your content directories.)
Different render engine than the shader was designed for means you have to adjust the shaders if you want best results. This applies when going from DS to Poser, Poser to Lux, DS to Octane, Poser to Vue, Lightwave to Max, etc. You are entitled to your opinion as to which is a better stock translation, but it still isn't best practice nor optimal results.
I get that you like rendering in Lux, but since both Carrara and DS have Lux render engine plug-ins, how does that differentiate DS and Carrara?
... the issue is, my Leela character preset still looks like my Leela character in Reality/Lux. In Carrara, her skin looks flat and pasty, he freckles are gone (Skin Overlay Resource), eyelashes are solid, eyes blank, and her physique is not as petite (due to morphs from merchant resource content not translating over).
As all of those shader complaints you have are easily set up and done right in Carrara's shader room. Like I said, Shaders are Render Engine dependent you have to adjust them for best results.
And are your morphs in the same Content Directory structure as your figure? Or isn't it a morph but something else? (Pose Control for example.)
Thank you for sharing that. Did not know that. Converting starships in Carrara didn't take me too deep into the software.
As all of those shader complaints you have are easily set up and done right in Carrara's shader room. Like I said, Shaders are Render Engine dependent you have to adjust them for best results.
And are your morphs in the same Content Directory structure as your figure? Or isn't it a morph but something else? (Pose Control for example.)
...with Reality 2.5 (which is where the surface/shader adjustments are made) all I needed to do was adjust the glossiness factor to eliminate render artefacts, same for hair and cloth, and she tuned out fine as can be seen in the sample I posted earlier. Reality4 has a new "skin" setting which helps improve performance of the SSS skin shaders.
The character preset is stored in the Daz 4.7 Library/Presets/Character folder and uses the Growing Up Morphs as well as a couple of Merchant Resource Morph Kits by Thorne which is where I think the conflict is since I do not see any of these morph sliders listed under the figure's parameters in Carrara.
Imagine you're a newcomer (or almost newcomer) to 3D creativity on the computer, and by some happenstance* you land on the DAZ3D homepage (*it's surprising how low DAZ comes in Google searches for variations on 3D... c'mon guys).
Your immediate exposure is to some impressive images, a free software program called DAZ Studio and an online store crammed full of amazing stuff, mostly human figure oriented - with a distinct slant toward slinky females.
Since you have a creative bent as much as a consumer bug, you start rummaging around to see if these guys have some software that facilitates your digital muse. Well, there's that Studio thing, which is obviously capable of stunning results and - it's free! So, you've signed up and it's downloading. What else? No software heading in the store. Maybe it's just content - people, animals, places, poses. Wow, some of these models really are amazing. That's definitely the main gig here, it seems.
Perhaps there's something in "resources and add-ons" that'll allow you to alter these models or even enable you to make your own. Ooh, "software programs", that's promising, Let's see. Blimey, what is all this? Loads of stuff that seems to be a part of something else. Lot's of things called "shaders". Jeans and tees shaders, ground shaders, jayden shaders, winter shaders, carrara shaders, grunged shaders, fabric shaders, noir shaders, and tarnished and polished shaders. This is just page two...
Ooh, "Vue 11 - Create your own 3D Worlds". This is more like it. OMG, the pictures. Bookmark this!
...goop shaders, velvety shaders, factory shaders, granite shaders, peacock shaders, shade shaders, subsurface gummy shaders...
(page 4) Hmmm, Carrara 8.5 Pro BETA (PUBLIC BUILD). 285 bucks for a beta program that isn't compatible with anything. No pictures except of the virtual box. Moving on...
...day job shaders, toon shaders, style shaders, hardcore shaders, gathering moss shaders...
.
.
Anyway, you know where I'm going with this. Carrara (as a full product) isn't listed under the "software programs" store heading. Unless you happen across it in a special promotions bar, it currently languishes on page 6 of the general "resources and add-ons" section amongst all the other bits and pieces being steadily buried under the new bits and pieces. There are no images illustrating its astonishing creation and output capabilities, and if you get beyond the bold header statements that it's not compatible with any figures or software (!), it is presented as another content agent.
Carrara vs Daz Studio? No contest. It's morning on the shining hill for Studio, and goodnight Vienna for Carrara.
And if you Carrara jockeys think you're getting a rum deal, try being a Bryce user around here... ;-)
Not as yummy as noodles, but it is sweeeeet! (you had to see that coming)
Just a few quick points to sum up my perspective.
1) Carrara, by itself, can be used to translate the image in your head to the screen. Studio can't.
(We should end there, but...)
2) A combination of Studio and other programs can be superior to Carrara. Sure, but if we are going to go down that road, then we should also observe that a combination of programs EXCLUDING Studio can also be superior to Carrara or Studio. There are some really good programs out there that are neither Studio nor Carrara - but why are we discussing them in a thread comparing Studio to Carrara? Because maybe you already are comfortable with some of those programs. See point 5.
3) Carrara can be combined with items bought in the Daz store (and elsewhere) to make really cool art. So can Studio. Carrara can be combined with other programs (modelers like Blender or Hex or...) to make really cool art. So can Studio.
4) There are more items designed specifically for Studio in the Daz store than for Carrara; therefore, more items in the Daz store might need shader adjustments in Carrara than require adjustments to be used in Studio (if the Carrara-related item can be used in Studio at all). But I have over 3000 items bought in the Daz store designed for Studio or Poser that I use seamlessly in Carrara. There are also items that need more adjustment.
5) If you already model your figures in Hexagon or Blender, and pose them in Studio or Poser, and create an environment around them in Bryce or Vue, and render them in Lux, then I would not try very hard to persuade you to switch to Carrara. But if you have been using Studio mostly with store bought content and are now wishing to have more ways to customize your scene elements, but want to retain the ability to integrate store bought content, then I would highly recommend Carrara. The alternative to Carrara would not be Studio, it would be learning the interface, tools, etc., of several programs. Although I like Carrara, I will note that the individual programs might be better at the one or two tasks they do than Carrara is at that particular task. For example, Hexagon has a few vertex modeling tools that Carrara does not. (On the other hand, Carrara has entire modeling types that Hex does not). Bryce's terrain editor has more precision than Carrara. Poser has a superior soft body physics (dynamic cloth) function. UVMapper Pro has more functions.
Nice render KK!
Just a couple notes.
Carrara can do mesh lights, so the lights you mentioned can be done in Carrara. The image of the Carousel below is lit using the light bulbs in the model as lights (plus the default distant light set to 15% so there is some light on the horse in the foreground). You set up mesh lights in Carrara using the glow channel of the object in the material room. For this quick and dirty demo image I set the glow for the lights to 5000%. You also need to enable indirect lighting in the render settings for mesh lights to work as lights.
Carrara also does great reflections. I'm not sure why you got poor or inaccurate reflections in Carrara. Both of the attached images show reflections in Carrara. You can see great reflections in the mirror panels in the Carousel image. I used the mirror shader included with Carrara for them. The other image to show reflections in Carrara was done with a modified chrome shader for the ball, and an HDRI for the reflections and lighting.
From the description of the Shades of Life Urban Construction texture/shader set the textures should work in Carrara, but you would probably need to set them up manually. Once they are set up in Carrara, you can save your shaders in Carrara and reuse them on any object you have in Carrara. Not ideal, and definitely not as easy as in DS, but they should be usable if you really needed to use them in Carrara.
Because Carrara doesn't have the PA support that DS does, working with materials/shaders is a skill that is almost a must. Due to this lack of PA support and readily available Carrara presets and content, Carrara requires a lot more user intervention to get great results. For some people the additional work (which is usually quite quick and easy once you get past the learning curve) is worth it for the additional features in Carrara, for others it isn't. It really depends on your needs, and which program you feel most comfortable in.
I hope I'm not sounding as if I don't like DS, or that it isn't a good program, because it is great at what it does, and I enjoy using it. Carrara is not for everyone. It does do a lot of things that DS doesn't do, and conversely DS does some things that Carrara doesn't do. That's why I don't look at it as Carrara vs DS, because you can use both programs together to expand your 3D tool set, and your 3D capabilities.
..nice samples. Indirect lighting though usually tends to slow down the render process. When I ran one of my render tests in Cararra I noticed it took a lot longer with IDL than without even at just "good" quality settings (more later).
I was preparing a comparison test between Studio and Carrara but ran into a few issues on the Carrara end.
In the Daz scene I used the following:
My Leela character preset
Paxton Hair
Neat Pleats with Punky Pleats Texture
Piratess Boots
Noveau Vignette
Sports Car Morris
One Advanced Ambient Light
One Advanced Distant Light
A pose from Fairy Poses for G2F
For the Carrara version:
First, Loaded the .duf character preset I saved (including the textures) . When she finished loading her skin was light grey and eyes dark.
Next, when I loaded the same clothing I used for the Daz Studio test, the lower hem of the blouse would not layer properly over the top of the skirt. There was also some minor pokethrough.
When I added the background set (with the camera at roughly the same angle as in the Daz scene) I noticed that the wall behind looked as if it was tilting forward.
When I ran the initial render her skin indeed rendered light grey. I was using the "good" settings and noticed that both the background set and clothing looked rather "grainy" compared to the 3DL render in Daz 4.7. When I increased the render settings, the process bogged down to the point of only being 18% complete after taking more time than it did to render the full scene in Daz Studio..
When I applied the "Leela SSS" material preset I had saved, her skin turned black and eyes, white. She rendered the same way.
All in all I spent about two hours trying to get a good render of a fairly simple scene from Carrara and failed. The Daz scene took about 40 min total from setup to finished rendered image (including several render tests). I never got as far as adding the car and posing the character in the Carrara version as it was getting late and I pretty much was getting nowhere.
It seems the only option I would have would be to rebuild the character from scratch again in Carrara as apparently it is not reading the imported texture maps correctly at all even though they were saved as .duf files.
This is why we need a bridge from Studio.
Greetings,
Sure, as long as your image in your mind doesn't have any people in it. :-(So...I know a number of people have been very diplomatic in their Carrara advocacy, and this quote doesn't represent them, but this quote upset me. That's just not true. DAZ Studio does just fine at that, and in fact better than Carrara ever has for me. That it does better for YOU just means you've internalized and accepted the pain imposed on you by the Carrara interface.
I have sadly failed to be able to set up anything worthwhile in Carrara...ever, with probably 20-25 hours of trying. I can load a Howie Farkes set, and BARELY manage to move a camera around, and eventually get a render (or a crash) out of it, but even on my best box it bogs down horribly, where DAZ Studio hums. The last time I tried to import a Genesis character (or clothing, I forget now), it crashed. I just wanted to render a single, dressed, person sitting by the side of a stream. Hours of fighting, and I had to give up. No. Do not claim Carrara is better for translating images to the screen, at least without years of experience. It's just not. Maybe with a complete UI overhaul to bring it up to snuff, but now? Just no.
The fact that every new figure comes with an (extra cost) skin shader for Carrara (implying I can't use my existing ones like I mostly can in 3Delight and Lux via Reality or Luxus) and that the promos for those shaders don't look very human makes me hesitant to try again.
Sure, I expect that you'll blame me, and it's only right that you do; I've been spoiled by an easy to use interface and a tool that can easily do scenes with PEOPLE very well, which are the kind of images *I* want to translate from my head to the screen. If I break down the time I spend fighting the tool vs. time focusing on the task of making a decent image, the tool time cost of Carrara is huge. Also, falling back to V4, a character that was already obsolete when I joined almost 3 years ago, seems like a rather poor trade off.
If anything, I hope they apply the last half-decade plus of experience in making an easier DS-ish interface in Carrara 9, make the Genesis support work stably, etc., etc., etc...except that then they'd end up with Studio reimplemented on an older, cruftier code base, which doesn't seem like a win.
So if the first question in the thread is what can DAZ Studio do that Carrara can't? Scenes with people. Expressions, variations in people, posing, using modern decent quality figures. HD, SSS, geografting (ears, tails, ANYthing!), clothing conversion, and more. Really, as someone said before, it's no contest.
For those who were being more diplomatic about their Carrara advocacy, I do hope DAZ does right by you eventually.
-- Morgan
We will have to respectfully agree to disagree about the use of humans.
For the record, though, Dustrider included an image with a human in this thread using Carrara. PhilW placed 1st in round 1 of the Beauty pageant at Renderosity using genesis figure in Carrara. There were many many entrants using a variety of programs including Studioand Poser. If you check the Post Your Renders thread in the Carrara forum you will see plenty of humans by artists who are pursuing photo realism (which does not include me). Here is one render http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/43528/P300/#710420 Please don't take this as an opportunity to flame that artist by looking for tiny flaws. It was done to test lighting in another thread, not to illustrate skin shaders in this thread. But it is clearly a human rendered in Carrara. If you wanted to tweak the ears, Carrara has had subsurface scattering since at least version 5.
I don't say that you can't render humans in Bryce. I do note that you can't POSE humans in Bryce. In another example, poser has a weightmapping system for the Dawn figure that is not supported in Studio. I don't say Studio can't do images with humans just because the native rigging system for Dawn isn't supported in Studio. On the Blender logic used by some, I note that Dawn could be posed in another program then exported as an obj and imported in Studio, so if someone was hellbent on rendering Dawn in Studio, it can be done. But most people using Studio seem to be using Genesis, not Dawn, and are getting great results. Good all around.
But from my perspective, leaving a program to go do functions in an entirely different program is being counted as the first program can still do that function, but I am being told that Carrara can't do something if a couple of channels in the shader tree within Carrara have to be adjusted or if a mesh has to be pulled slightly with the soft select tool within Carrara. Apples to oranges.
I have used the Daz Michael and Victoria 1-6 in Carrara. If we are counting using 3rd programs as plugins, not only have I converted V4 clothes to Genesis with Studio and used the result in Carrara, but I have also converted the Poser 7 Simon figures clothes using wardrobe wizard and then Studio auto fit and then used them on Michael 5 in Carrara. I have also modeled and rigged my own humans from scratch in Carrara, but naturally they are not as good as Genesis and I don't recommend people do that. If I am going to do anything serious, I use Daz human figures, and that includes Genesis and Genesis 2.
If I want a 3-armed man wearing a kilt and flapping mesh wings covered with feathers falling from a purple sky with storm clouds and three moons, with each of the 3 moons emitting light,I can do it all from scratch in Carrara straight out of the box. I can't do it from scratch in studio. But, I like Studio and I like the Daz store, and I have no problem with using multiple programs. So, I could buy some of the set pieces in the Daz store, and I could do any required modeling in Hexagon, I could combine two figures but make only the arm of one visible for use in Studio to make the 3 armed man, etc, etc. I can make the image in Studio if I combine Studio with other stuff. Great, no problem with that. There are beautiful images. I have agreed that the uv mapping function in a dedicated uvmapping program is superior to Carrara, and the terrain editor in Bryce is more precise than Carrara's terrain editor. But if using uvmapper pro (or whatever) to supplement Studio counts for Studio, then the same supplement should also count for Carrara because items modeled in Blender can be used in Carrara, not just Studio.
But I can do the version of the 3 armed man that is in my head completely in Carrara. I can't completely within Studio.
The second option for Mesh Lights, Anything Glows works quite well for Mesh Lights. (The one limitation is it is for an entire object, not for individual material zones or parts of objects.)
The third option is Carrara does offer, as standard, several Mesh Lights. (Shape Lights.) Carrara 8.5 allows you to get a visible representation of these lights in the assembly room that shows you both size and shape.
The fourth option is plugging in an IES profile for lights.
I tend to use a combination of those plus AO in Carrara for fast and almost real renders.
In most cases you don't need full GI with Carrara, but it is there, and the combination of IES lights, and GI will give you everything you need to do full Architecture Pre-Viz to show a client near real renders.
Subjectively, some can argue that Studio is just better for them because they like/know the interface, they don't have to change/tweak the default textures before rendering, etc. I know full well that many people just plain prefer Studio, and are fully satisfied with what it's render engine produces. My opinion greatly differs, and I can answer subjectively a debate about the low quality of Studio's rendering (imo), the counterintuitive nature of the interface (imo), how slow and difficult it is to setup a scene in Studio (imo), and the way that Studio shaders are flat and lacking (imo).
But these are all subjective opinions. He said, she said kind of stuff. Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and if Studio is you're favorite app and you don't mind the limitations of it and are cool with the quality of what it can do, then who am I to say you're wrong? Whatever works for you, personally, is cool beans.
The thing is, the original poster in this thread asked an *objective* question: What can Studio actually do that Carrara can't. And divorced of the vagaries of human opinion (and the rumor mill of 'I've always heard xxxx about Carrara, so therefore it's just 'common wisdom' Carrara can't do xxxx, regardless of actual facts contradicting this), Carrara can do nearly 100% everything Studio can do. Can Studio do nearly 100% of what Carrara can do? Not even close, or even in the same ballpark. You put together a side by side feature set comparison between them and it's obvious at a glance Carrara does way way more. Studio handles genesis and genesis2 a bit better, and that's about it for things in Studio's 'win' column, of course that's fine if that's all you need, but then that wasn't the original question.
So in other words, you have to adjust the default Studio shaders in order to get the maximum best look when rendering in Lux. Same way anyone would have to adjust the default Studio or Poser shaders in order to get the maximum best look when rendering in Carrara. I personally spent quite a bit of time working on getting decent Lux shaders for skin myself when I first got Luxus. While I ultimately prefer using Octane and Thea, and feel like I've done better texturing work there (especially Thea) I'm uncommonly proud that a fellow carrarist named joeping has adopted my Lux skin settings and uses them to produce truly fantastic renders (he's a much much better artist than me in fact, and it's a shame not many people get to see his work, check out his stuff in this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42282/ you'll see what I mean, he's very talented and does quite excellent work).
But my point is every time you decide to take a default texture for Studio and render it in any other app, whether it's Vue or Lightwave or Lux or C4D or Carrara, you have to expect that it's going to need some tuning in that render engine to look it's best, and probably won't look nearly as good when you just use the Studio default unchanged.
It's a fair argument to say "I don't want to ever have to learn any sort of texturing or change any of my textures from the defaults, so I will stick with Studio for ease". It's not fair to say "textures always look wrong in Carrara when I use the Studio defaults, therefore Carrara must have something intrinsically wrong with it."
Made me think of that old quote "Who are you gonna trust? Me? Or your lying eyes!" :)
Urban legends are weird things. I feel like somehow an urban legend has sprung up that Carrara can't render people generally and Genesis2 specifically. No matter how many renders are posted (for example Dustrider's excellent contest-winning one reposted earlier in the thread) the physical evidence that people are already doing this quite well in Carrara seems to still be ignored and the urban legend persists...
The second option for Mesh Lights, Anything Glows works quite well for Mesh Lights. (The one limitation is it is for an entire object, not for individual material zones or parts of objects.)
The third option is Carrara does offer, as standard, several Mesh Lights. (Shape Lights.) Carrara 8.5 allows you to get a visible representation of these lights in the assembly room that shows you both size and shape.
The fourth option is plugging in an IES profile for lights.
I tend to use a combination of those plus AO in Carrara for fast and almost real renders.
In most cases you don't need full GI with Carrara, but it is there, and the combination of IES lights, and GI will give you everything you need to do full Architecture Pre-Viz to show a client near real renders.
Thanks Spooky!! You need to join in the discussions more often, I always learn something new (or reminded of something I should have remembered).
Thanks Spooky!! You need to join in the discussions more often, I always learn something new (or reminded of something I should have remembered).
Two other points.
For SSS to be interpreted properly in Carrara you need some form of Global Illumination, either Full GI or just Ambient Occlusion works, but you need one of them.
Also note there appears to be a bug, that we are looking into, with SSS and Gamma correction set to 2.2, SSS tends to get blown out. Though that could be a setting issue, I don't believe it is.
So in other words, you have to adjust the default Studio shaders in order to get the maximum best look when rendering in Lux. Same way anyone would have to adjust the default Studio or Poser shaders in order to get the maximum best look when rendering in Carrara. I personally spent quite a bit of time working on getting decent Lux shaders for skin myself when I first got Luxus. While I ultimately prefer using Octane and Thea, and feel like I've done better texturing work there (especially Thea) I'm uncommonly proud that a fellow carrarist named joeping has adopted my Lux skin settings and uses them to produce truly fantastic renders (he's a much much better artist than me in fact, and it's a shame not many people get to see his work, check out his stuff in this thread http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/42282/ you'll see what I mean, he's very talented and does quite excellent work).
But my point is every time you decide to take a default texture for Studio and render it in any other app, whether it's Vue or Lightwave or Lux or C4D or Carrara, you have to expect that it's going to need some tuning in that render engine to look it's best, and probably won't look nearly as good when you just use the Studio default unchanged.
It's a fair argument to say "I don't want to ever have to learn any sort of texturing or change any of my textures from the defaults, so I will stick with Studio for ease". It's not fair to say "textures always look wrong in Carrara when I use the Studio defaults, therefore Carrara must have something intrinsically wrong with it."
...please read my post about the experiment I did last night.. It took far more a than a few clicks and slider adjustments (which i what it takes in Reality) and I still could not get the saved textures to look right. Solid light grey or solid black is far from needing "some tuning". Also some of the tools I used to help create the character do not work in Carrara at all and there are no substitutes.
I should have saved one or two of the Carrara render attempts to post here.
...please read my post about the experiment I did last night.. It took far more a than a few clicks and slider adjustments (which i what it takes in Reality) and I still could not get the saved textures to look right. Solid light grey or solid black is far from needing "some tuning". Also some of the tools I used to help create the character do not work in Carrara at all and there are no substitutes.
I should have saved one or two of the Carrara render attempts to post here.
You said you have to adjust the shaders.
I am not sure what else you are trying to say here. When comparing the adjusting the shader time difference plus the render time difference, are you claiming you have a time savings with DS+Lux vs. Carrara? (Especially once you learn the Carrara Shader Room.)
...I find adjusting the shaders for Reality is a lot less complex. Reality does a very good job of basically interpreting and translating the Daz shaders (including overlays) for LuxRender. Even without the adjustments, I don't get my imported characters showing up as light grey or black in the rendered image. Based on what I saw happening last night with the Carrara scene, I would have to rebuild the maps for the character from scratch in Carrara's shader room, a much more time consuming process, and they still would not be an exact match because the overlay tools I used for the freckled complexion will not work in Carrara. To get the that, I would have to design my own custom skin in a 2D application which is even a more drawn out process.
Yes, for things like modelling, terrain/environment design, 3D logo/text, and animation, Carrara has the advantage over Daz Studio. True it can also create high quality rendered images without an external render engine like Lux or Octane.
For ease of use in character development/design and figure set up/rigging, that is where Daz Studio excels. It's just sad the two don't play very well together like they used to.
Not debating programs, I think a range of tools always makes sense. But I really hope DAZ does not take the complaints about Carrara's interface as anything close to universal. I find the interface much, much easier than that of DS and would likely abandon Carrara if it went down that road. I don't think I'm alone in this. Just because many of us aren't posting, doesn't mean we agree.