Digest Number 3270 2005-04-17 - By Peter MacDougall
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I do not speak for Eovia but perhaps I can give my two cents, my opinion
about why Carrara and Amapi have the communities they have. IMHO...
Each application has a target audience and that audience makes up the
community of users. In Carrara's case, the app is designed to be easy to
get to grips on as an all round 3D application for new users, "casual"
users--digital artists who need some 3D in their toolset--and
professional users. It therefore straddles the Poser-Bryce-Truescape to
Cinema4D-Lightwave audiences.
Carrara is used in a lot of places for stills and animation but not very
visibly in my experience. Why? Because if you devote a large amount of
your time and effort to climbing the learning curve of your application
of choice, you are going to make sure you mention that you worked hard
and succeeded in learning this difficult tool. If you didn't have to
invest yourself that way, you don't have the same urge to shout about
how proud you are of yourself. When I read 3DWorld it is all about how
this company did that and the other thing and they make a point of
mentioning they use certain programs as a selling point knowing that
some customers feel that they are getting a better product if the
company uses a tool they have heard about.
Carrara is not the choice of students wanting to be 3D character
designers and animators because they all want to learn how to use an
application that they expect to be using when they get hired after they
graduate. So they go for a 3D app like Maya or Lightwave because they
have the production-type user interface. And for the student they make
sense since the educational versions are available at a deep discount or
even free. However, as a illustrator and graphic designer, I don't get
an academic discount. I need something that costs less than $2000 bucks,
doesn't take me long to learn, produces production quality stills and
animations, and fits in with my other programs and OS of choice.
Also, since I am not a student but a professional I don't have a lot of
time to sit and contribute to a community site about what I'm doing: I
just have too many other demands. It's not to say that Carrara doesn't
have a lot of users, or a dedicated community--it does in both
accounts--but its target audience and therefore its community of users
is different in quality from those apps.
As for the price, Carrara is inexpensive for the non-academic person.
Relatively speaking, the plugins are very cheap. I don't think that can
be said for the likes of Maya, Lightwave or Cinema4D. Other 3D
application companies want your money too, but they ask for it in a
diffent way: big up-front investment with "free" extras vs more of a
pay-as-you-go model with Eovia. The Maya 6.5 upgrade is $900 USD just
for the Complete version and Lightwave 7 to 8 is $500. Compare that to
$200 for Carrara 3 to 4. Also the upgrade from Carrara 4.0 to 4.1.1 was
free and added new functionality beyond bug fixes. Point releases for
Carrara have always been free.
As for Amapi Designer and Pro, it seems to me that Pro is aimed at
industrial design and not video game designers or hollywood video/fx
houses. Not that it can't be used for either, it is one of the best
modellers but again, its not a vocal community that is its audience.
Also, Amapi was originally french, not US developed and so it makes
sense that its community is european based as it had wide exposure in
Europe before it came to the crowded US market.
I bought Amapi Designer when it first came out because I love modelling
in Amapi. I was gratified to see parts of Amapi show up in Carrara 3. I
didn't get Amapi Pro because I did not need the NURBS for the work I do
(illustration and graphic design). I am looking forward to Hexagon
because it looks easy to use and I think it will make my modelling
easier. But even if I don't get it, I expect that its tools will go
forward into Carrara in the same way Amapi did.
The whole issue reminds me of Photoshop: Photoshop is slow, expensive
and difficult to use but it is the industry standard because of
branding. You will find lots of books and videos and tutorials for
Photoshop because there is a large user base but I bet you will also
find a lot of repetition: five tutorials vs two tutorials on the same
subject is not necessarily an improvement. Fact is, Corel Photopaint,
Painter, Paintshop Pro and Dogwaffle do most of photoshop does if not
more or better and cheaper. But they don't have the designation as
"industry standard" and do not have the same size user base. Still the
tutorials for Photoshop can be used for these applications as well. It
makes sense to get photoshop if it is required for your job but if not,
probably one of the others will work as well or better and be cheaper.
So, in the end, the question you have to ask yourself is what do you
want to do? If you are wanting a different community, you will want a
different application. Maybe even consider Blender. If you are a student
looking for a set of skills with the applications used in game design
and video/movie f/x studios you will want a different program and will
get a different community. I am not saying Carrara is "THE" 3D program
but if you want an inexpensive, easy-to-use application for doing quick
but good 3D work, Carrara, Amapi and Hexagon probably will work better
for you than many other apps in the same price range or less. You will
get the community you see here in this forum.
Still all my humble opinion.
Good luck whatever you choose
danchan@(protected) wrote:
>
> Agreed - and what's with Eovia and the recent plugin overhauls just to bilk
us out of money for the plugins we already paid for? The 'upgrades' should be
patches to the first ones and not something to cash cow. Further, who needs
another modeler when you have 3 modelers in your product line up - Carrara's
which is weak, Amapi which is strong but with weak support / community base
especially if you're in the US, and then Amapi Designer that was a consolation
prize to Carrara Pro users as if to say, "sorry we shipped you junk with
Carrara, here's some better junk for you to use..." - it shows when it's just a
tacked on CD with nothing but an electronic reference to glare at you from
Acrobat reader...
>
> I've since decided forget about waiting for Eovia to come up with the perfect
solution and to migrate into the mainstream. I've always been a fan of the
underdog and Metacreations won me over in an dawning era of 3D graphics - that
's not to say Eovia hasn't done a decent job in maintaining the software they
inherited, but there's just something about the lack of anyone using Eovia's
software that puts a damper on things. When you have no users, you have no
sales, you have no developement budget, you get no results... To me, Eovia's
turning into a company that's out there for the buck now, I've reconsidered and
am going with Newtek and Lightwave where large updgrades are free (look at
Lightwave 8's history --> 8.2) and prices are comparable - especially at the
student level that I'm at... Then with a toolkit that people actually use,
maybe I'll find a job where I won't look like a fool for mentioning Eovia.
>
> My two cents,
> Dan
--
Peter MacDougall
pem@(protected)
http://www3.telus.net/pem/index.htm
Reality always exceeds your expectations.
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