Carrara is a full-featured 3D computer graphics application featuring figure posing and editing, as well as nature modeling, in addition to traditional modeling, animation, texturing and rendering. The software is also capable of dynamic hair and fur simulations, particle effects, soft body and

rigid body dynamics In the physical science of dynamics, rigid-body dynamics studies the movement of systems of interconnected bodies under the action of external forces. The assumption that the bodies are ''rigid'' (i.e. they do not deform under the action of a ...

. Carrara is now owned and developed by

Daz 3D Daz Productions, Inc. (commonly known as Daz 3D, stylized Daz3D or DAZ 3D in some logos) is a 3D-content and software company specializing in providing rigged 3D human models, associated accessory content, and software to the hobbyist as well ...

. Carrara is compatible with

Poser Poser or ''variant'', may refer to: *a hard problem, a poser *a hard question, a poser People *Poseur, a person who inauthentically adopts a certain subculture *a person playing a role, a role-play, a fake, an imposter * Bob Poser (1910–2002) ...

and

Daz Studio Daz Studio is a free media design software developed by Daz 3D. Daz Studio is a 3D scene creation and rendering application used to produce images as well as video. Renders can be done by leveraging either the 3Delight render engine, or the Ira ...

formats of 3D figures and props. It is further supported by a number of 3rd party plug-ins and add-ons. In addition to its native renderer, the program is also integrated with external 3rd party renderers

LuxRender LuxCoreRender is a free and open-source physically based rendering software. It began as ''LuxRender'' in 2008 before changing its name to LuxCoreRender in 2017 as part of a project reboot. The LuxCoreRender software runs on Linux, Mac OS X, a ...

and

Octane Octane is a hydrocarbon and an alkane with the chemical formula , and the condensed structural formula . Octane has many structural isomers that differ by the amount and location of branching in the carbon chain. One of these isomers, 2,2,4-Tri ...

. Carrara is considered to be comparatively easy to learn and use.

History

The history of Carrara started in 1989 when a group of individuals founded Ray Dream, Inc., with the idea of creating graphic software for the new

Macintosh computer The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

s with color displays. Two years later, the first version of their new 3D graphics program, which they named

Ray Dream Studio Ray Dream Studio was a low-end 3D modeling software application. Initially developed by Ray Dream, Inc. in 1989-1991 for the Macintosh, it was acquired and upgraded over the course of mergers with Fractal Design and MetaCreations. Ray Dream was l ...

, was released. In the years that followed, Ray Dream Studio became a successful product having at one time over 200,000 users. In 1996, Ray Dream, Inc., was sold to Fractal Design Corporation (then the developer of

Corel Painter Corel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by ...

and Poser). Fractal Design was in turn acquired by MetaTools (developer of Bryce and KPT) shortly thereafter. The combination of the two companies was given the new name

MetaCreations MetaCreations was a computer software company that was best known for its graphics applications, notably Ray Dream Studio/Infini D, Fractal Design Painter, Bryce, and Kai's Power Tools. History MetaCreations was founded in 1997 by the mer ...

. Around the same time, another 3D graphics program, named

Infini-D Infini-D was a 3D computer graphics program developed by Specular International. It was continued by MetaCreations when Specular merged with them, developing up to version 4.5, then combined with Ray Dream Studio to create Carrara. Soon after, Meta ...

, was acquired from Specular International. Now owning two 3D graphics programs, MetaCreations decided to merge Ray Dream and Infini-D into one application, giving it the new name Carrara. MetaCreations released version 1.0 of Carrara with significant bugs. They soon released a patch for the code, then afterwards stopped support of the package. For a short period, the only way Carrara users could get the patch was through other internet sites or Carrara interest groups in different places on the web. Around the year 2000, when MetaCreations was divesting itself of most of its products, it sold Carrara to a new company named Eovia, founded by former employee Antoine Clappier. Eovia developed Carrara for several versions, culminating with version 5 in 2005. That same year, Eovia shipped a new 3D modeling application,

Hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Ancient Greek, Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple polygon, simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexa ...

. Eovia made significant upgrades to Carrara, which included the Ray Dream

physics engine A physics engine is computer software that provides an approximate simulation of certain physical systems, such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics, of use in the domains of computer gr ...

, originally not licensed in the MetaCreations version of the code. Improvements included soft shadows, caustics,

global illumination Global illumination (GI), or indirect illumination, is a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting to 3D scenes. Such algorithms take into account not only the light that comes directly from ...

, and better atmosphere models. In 2006,

(developers of

and a line of articulated 3D figures) acquired Eovia along with Carrara and Hexagon. Several former MetaCreations employees moved over to Daz and continued development on Carrara. Daz 3D added posable figures, models for hair, and animation tools. Daz 3D works in an "open development" environment, releasing early and turning to its users for bug reports and feature input. In May 2010, the company released Carrara 8.0. It included the addition of the

Bullet A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. Bullets are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax. Bullets are made in various shapes and co ...

physics engine, with which Carrara can more realistically animate scenes involving collisions of multiple bodies or particles. Daz has also added models for soft-body dynamics, for better cloth and clothing animation.

Features

Version 8.5

* Native DSON importer * Native auto-fit and improved fit-to-functionality for figures' clothing and accessories * Improved sequencer, key-framing, and animation tools * "Smart" content and

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manag ...

integration * Animation commands — "Zero", "Memorise", "Restore" (for figures, selections, and selection trees) * Improved representation of lights in viewport (spot, sun, moon, tube, and shape lights) * Shader additions (Multi-Layer Shader and Elements)

Version 8.0

* 64-bit support for macOS and Windows * Multithreading for macOS and Windows *

physics library * Improved

FBX FBX (''Filmbox'') is a proprietary file format () developed by Kaydara and owned by Autodesk since 2006. It is used to provide interoperability between digital content creation applications. FBX is also part of Autodesk Gameware, a series of vid ...

and

COLLADA COLLADA (for ''COLLA''borative ''D''esign ''A''ctivity) is an interchange file format for interactive 3D applications. It is managed by the nonprofit technology consortium, the Khronos Group, and has been adopted by ISO as a publicly available s ...

data exchange * Negative lights and photometrics (IES) * "God rays" and "barn door" lighting and effects * Editing of posed meshes * Puppeteer

References

*
Carrara 8 Pro Product Page

Carrara Developer Information

Carrara Add-on Products and Plug-ins

External links

Digital Carvers Guild
plug-ins and other resources for 3D software
Inagoni
Carrara 3D plug-ins

Fenrics Fox Den

PyCarrara
Python scripting plugin for Carrara
PyCloid
enhanced particle system {{Animation editors 3D graphics software