i’ve been shopping around for a program and someone typed me about blender.
i did find carerra (4) and planned to go with that.
so, i’m wondering how blender compares with carrera. it sounds better than bryce.
how far under lightwave is it!?
i’d get blender now if i could get it on cd (for my better pc).
merci
Here’s a link to the download page for the latest version of Blender: http://www.blender.org/cms/Blender.31.0.html
The download’s only 4.8 MB, so it shouldn’t be bad even on dial-up. (I don’t know if you needed a link, so I just put it there in case. 
)
As far as comparing Blender to other “leading” 3-D applications, it’s mainly a matter of preference, ease of use, sometimes “power”. Blender is a fastly evolving program with lots of new features added within the past year. The UI does take some getting used to, but after using it for a bit, I found it much easier to navigate than Maya.(I tried Maya, I didn’t get anywhere. ;))
Unfortunately I can’t give any advice as to how Blender compares to Lightwave or Carrera. My advice to you is to download Blender, give it a couple of weeks, try some tutorials and see if it fits your needs.
DwarvenFury
p.s. Welcome to Elysiun!
p.p.s If you have any questions about using Blender, The Blender General Forum should be just what you need.
Hi,
I’m an “old timer” 3DS Max user and I’ve also used Lightwave and Animation Master. I started shopping for a new 3D system last year and decided on Carrara. I’d say that, dollar for dollar, it’s a pretty nice system. In almost no time at all, you can go from complete newbie to final creation of some very nice animated titles and other f/x. Seriously, what it has (and Blender lacks) is tons of preset title f/x, special f/x, textures, etc. With just a couple clicks, you can have a very nice animation. It’s also powerful enough (and with the addition of Poser and some practice) that you can do maybe 80% of what Lightwave and 3DS can do.
But if you need that additional 20% to really be on the leading edge, then Lightwave, Maya or one of the other high end systems (maybe even Blender) are the way to go.
Blender will give you (and I’m guessing) maybe 95% or more of what the high end systems will give you. Everything you can do in Carrara, can be done with Blender, it will just take you a bit longer to get started and may take some additional effort on your part to find (ie. plug-ins). Add Wings3D to Blender, and you’ve got a very nice system for absolutely no cost. Of all the systems I’ve listed, I think the Blender support forum(s) are without equal.
Since purchasing Carrara (and with it came Amapi Designer) I’ve found that I’m using Blender more and Carrara less. (I’m also using Windows less and Linux more, but that’s for another thread). In fact, I’ll probably sell my copy of Carrara since I’m using it so infrequently.
thanks for the replies. boy, last night i settled on carrera. now your giving second thoughts. carrera has a nice set up for trees/terrains and the like. does blender have this kinda thing?
DwarvenFury, your icon makes me think of… Odin. und warum nicht!?
Carrar is easy to use, thats all it is. Its made for 3D newbies, Blender allows more power then Carrar.
Blender has a better animation system and writing tools in python is far easier then using their sdk to develope plugins.
I’d prefer lightwave to carr, since it has a better animation system (better then blender’s) and a fast hybrid raytracer. Plus it comes with shag light.
Carra is probably bettter of in producing animation since it workflow is designed for that allowing a broad veiw with story boards, etc. Never very good at modeling, but blender or wings can help you with that.
The biggest thing I like about Carra is its render engine is quite nice, volumetric clouds are so awsome! RenderMan would bit it senseless, but every in Carr is just made to work so well together, you just dont get as much control as advance user would like.