Carrara’s 5.1 presents an attractive and functional carefully designed interface. Icons are clear and easy to understand, tool tips are plentiful and mode changes are obvious.

Earlier this month Eovia (just acquired by DAZ Prods.) released Carrara 5.1 Pro, an update to its fully featured, low cost 3D modeling, animation and rendering package. This review will focus on the Pro version of the software; however, Eovia has also released the lower priced alternative standard version, Carrara 5.1.

Carrara is impressive from the start, utilizing a visually polished interface that is reminiscent of other 3D programs in its class. In particular, Carrara is strikingly similar to Poser at first glance. The smooth, carefully designed interface not only looks attractive, but it is also quite functional. Icons are clear and easy to understand, tool tips are plentiful and mode changes are obvious. The biggest problem for experienced users will most likely be the alternative keyboard shortcuts.

The biggest problem for experienced users will be the alternative keyboard shortcuts Eovia chose to use for such basic maneuvering such as move, scale and rotate. All screenshots courtesy of Fred Galpern.

Eovia chose to use for such basic maneuvering such as move, scale and rotate. More and more we are seeing applications share shortcuts, thus lowering the learning curve considerably. Custom keyboard shortcuts are possible, but the lack of save and load for groups of keyboard shortcuts is limiting. The good news is that Carrara is clearly an application marketed to those new to 3D. This takes some of the sting out of the non-standard keyboard shortcuts, as the whole idea of 3D is probably new to Carrara users. For these folks embarking on the great 3D adventure, non-standard keyboard shortcuts are the least of their worries. Professional 3D artists looking for a piece of software to use at home for personal pet projects may consider Carrara, but there are many other options available, including free trial or learning edition versions of much of the software they use at the office. Graphic designers looking to round out their toolset with a 3D application will find much to like in Carrara, as will those new users mentioned earlier.

Carrara offers many strong features that push the envelope of 3D software in this price range. The most impressive of these features is the environment simulation. Although it is possible to recreate a similar image in more expensive software, Carrara offers very usable, fully tweakable options with just a few presets. There is no need to make any direct changes to the geometry or textures, although if a user wants to do this, it is possible.

The most impressive of Carrara’s features is the environment simulation. Carrara offers very usable, fully tweakable options with just a few presets.

Another of the fun and useful semi-automated tools in Carrara is plant creation. After selecting the plant icon on the main menu and dropping a plant object into their scene, users will find themselves in front of the plant manipulation interface. This interface is broken up into five tabs, each containing a number of clearly marked sliders, in addition to some drop down lists. The tabs are logically separated into trunk, branches, leaf, tree shape and experts which allows users to jump between tabs in order to create their perfect plant. The plant preview is good, but there are enough differences between what users see in the application and what the render output looks like to cause a bit of confusion. The bottom line is that the plant generator is a great feature, it just takes a little getting used to when trying to predict what a render will give you.

Modeling in Carrara is in line with many other 3D apps, following standard conventions. Again, the alternative keyboard shortcuts take some getting used to for experienced users, but beginners will find Carrara a great first step into 3D. Primitive object creation is where most users will begin. Primitives can then be modified with extrusion, lathing and other standard tools as well as the usual assortment of vertex, edge and polygon manipulation.