Eliane CK showing off the power of LuxRender and Luxus with one of her unmistakeable signature images

LuxRender comes to Carrara with GPU unbiased rendering power

For those of you that have been waiting for an easy way to configure and export your Carrara scenes to an unbiased render engine then your day has finally arrived. Not only do you finally have relatively quick and easy access to unbiased rendering, but it comes at just the price of one very affordable plugin. No hundreds of dollars for licensing fees and possible hardware upgrade to CUDA compliant technology, just Luxus for Carrara and LuxRender (free). funnily enough I’ve been working on a beginners guide to Luxus for DAZ Studio (which will be posted here and available as a PDF when done) and was about to set to work on completing it just as I stumbled upon this new Carrara version.

This is great news for Carrara users. I remember when I was just starting to use the software there was talk of Reality for Carrara, and that was very exciting, but whatever the reasons, it didn’t go ahead. I doubt I was the only one that was disappointed by this turn of events. There was a lot of talk about how developing content and plugins just wasn’t financially viable for Carrara, but more than a year later here we are. Recently I’ve been modelling a lot in LightWave and exporting these models to DAZ Studio to use Luxus and then onto LuxRender.

If my experience of Luxus for DS is anything to go by then Luxus for Carrara will be a very flexible and reliable tool indeed. It is very possible that I may even consider changing my workflow. Some grumble at the current speed with which it Lux renders, but with it being rapidly developed (huge speed increases and GPU breakthroughs in just the last year) the future is looking very bright, and then again there is price. At zero dollars you just can’t beat Lux.

Myth Busted

DP Carrara Master Collection Shaders

And then as if to put paid to the argument that content development for Carrara is not viable, on the very same day another (unrelated) product is released. DP Carrara Master Collection Shaders from well known Carrara vendor, RingoMonfort. This new set of shaders, according to the product’s description “will bring stunning realism to your Carrara scenes using the most powerful texture room features: Anisotropic, sub-surface scattering, transparency absorption, fresnel, translucency and much more. From Faux Finish paints, corrosion, beautiful woods, crystals, metals, paints and much more.” Of course the claim is backed up with simple but effective demonstration images.

Carrara Pro 69% off

Carrara 8 and Pro are once again on heavy discount For Platinum club members the current price for Pro is $171 (69% off), so if you’re not a PC club member it is worth signing up just for the saving, even if you didn’t want to fork out for an annual subscription. Carrara is the perfect tool for the upstart 3D artist that wants a taste of everything – modelling, animation, rigging, special effects, rigid and soft body dynamics, 3D render engine that punches well above its weight, landscapes and foliage, support for DAZ/Poser content and figures, and now access to cheap unbiased rendering – everything! With Carrara 8.5 and 9 just around the corner it is indeed, once again, exciting times to be a Carrara user.

iClone5 Sales and promotions

iClone still topping DAZ 3D top 30 sales chart.

Also on offer at the store is a bunch of training material for MyClone, currently 100% off with the purchase of iClone Animation Pipeline (3 in 1). Of course the material is free for PC club members – just one of those perks 😉 iClone5 Facial Pipeline Power Bundle is still placed high on the DAZ 3D top 30 chart since it was first released, and currently 50% off. I can’t say I know much about it but it is one of those things that seems to be on the wish list of every small/solo animation teams wish list, and with great integration for Genesis.

New Bryce Freebie by David Brinnen and Horo

…And of course there is a cool new freebie by David Brinnen and Horo, Golden Rules Composition Helpers for Bryce. Anyone who has done any elementary visual arts course has heard all about the golden rules, but with this neat little set of tools you can easily put them into practice. On top of this David and Horo’s stores are on special with handy training material like Bryce Mentoring DVD – Videos, Scenes and Resources currently 40% off. If you happened to miss the DigiSprawl series of Bryce Artist Features then you might be labouring under the false assumption that it is an out-dated and irrelevant program. Now is as good a time as any to find out about the quirky elegance of the program and witness some of the beautiful art being made with it on a daily basis.

Ok, back to work for me 😉 Happy renderings!