Carrara 5 Pro, priced $300 higher than Carrara 5 (and now a part of the
Daz Production family), includes several important features not found
in its less expensive sibling. For animators, the Graph Editor and
network rendering features are essential, and modelers will want the
new Edge and Surface modeling tools. Anyone working in a collaborative
studio will also need the import/export abilities found in the Pro
version.

Carrara 5 Pro introduces a number of professional-level features that
propel a once-scoffed application into something to be reckoned with.
First are the additions and improvements made to the render engine,
including translucency (a type of material that allows light to pass
through diffusely) and ambient occlusion, for speeding up the rendering
of scenes that require the look of global illumination. Subsurface
scattering has also been added, simulating the look of light hitting
and filtering through the surface of an object like skin or milk.

Lighting controls have been improved with the addition of inclusion and
exclusion light lists. These lists enable an artist to defy the
physical realistic world by choosing which objects are to be
illuminated-or not-by specific lights, giving more control over the
look of a scene than a lighting designer ever has.

The new Graph Editor is essential for controlling animation and how
keyframes are interpreted. The Graph Editor is toggled by a button in
the Sequencer, and it replaces the timeline until it’s turned off. A
nice implementation for the first time, the Graph Editor offers basic
controls over keyframes, including linear or eased interpolations,
sliding them temporally or spatially, and deleting or duplicating
keyframes.

A new particle system allows for the creation of volumetric clouds, as
well as smoke and fluids. Particles can be generated from the surface
of almost any object, and any object can be used as a particle. This
means one can easily create a swarm of bees or leaves falling from a
tree.

In the animation department, bones and joints now allow for orientation
control, so that every joint rotates in the proper direction. There’s
also a bounding box display option for skinned objects, enabling the
animator to focus on movement and animation by reducing or eliminating
display latency.

Tools for modeling have also been improved and new tools added. The
basic selection tool can now select by lasso, selections can be grown
or shrunk and even selections made using a paint stroke.

Carrara 5 Pro has much to offer, including a multi-processor-aware
render engine capable of beautiful output, plenty of presets for
building scenes quickly and an active and helpful online community. But
while the built-in tools work as expected and work well, the interface
is the application’s biggest liability (or asset). The default behavior
of taking over the screen is unnerving, and the non-standard windows,
fonts and menus are enough to disorient a user.

Interface issues aside, this 3D application could easily become a vital tool for any content developer.