History of Carrara
Just a stroll down memory lane - Well.. research for me since I only came aboard with Carrara 8, though to get it, I also own 6.5 and 7 I'd love to eventually own all of them, just for a nice nostalgia collection on its own shelf in my studio/office.
To begin looking at the history of Carrara, we must go back to1989 when a group of individuals founded Ray Dream, Inc., with the idea of creating graphic software for the new Macintosh computers with color displays. The first version of their efforts, named Ray Dream Studio, was released in 1991.
Informational text from this article was taken from the Carrara (software) Wikipedia
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 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. Around the same time, another 3D graphics program, named Infini-D, 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.
Eovia made significant upgrades to Carrara, which included the Ray Dream physics engine, originally not licensed in the MetaCreations version of the code. Improvements included soft shadows, caustics, global illumination, and better atmosphere models.
Here's the text from a really cool old ad promo for Carrara Studio 1.1 by Eovia
In 2006, Daz 3D (developers of Daz Studio 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 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.
Daz 3d has reported to us on several occasions now that Carrara is no longer planned for active development, but what they've left us with is one amazing version of this Beautiful 2D Authoring Suite!
With Genesis support and a whole slew of additions and fixes, Carrara 8.5 Pro is by far my favorite reason to turn on my computer!
Interested in more of Carrara's History?
We have the truly wonderful 3DXtract e-zine collection available for download, which is filled with tutorials, tips, news and just plain awesome discussion about Carrara and Amapi - and it begins around the time of Carrara 3 Studio, so it's really fun to see what they were up to and what they looked forward to.
I think it's really wonderful that many of the artists using it back then are still enjoying it to this day! :)
Screenshot of Nov/Dec 2004 Issue
Carrara Cafe is an amazing site of information, news, inspiration, downloads, galleries... Everything Carrara - they even have their own forums!
The crew that maintains the site and keeps it up to date are an enthusiastic, helpful and knowledgeable lot. Their passion for Carrara is what makes the Cafe such a great place.
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(or not... your choice!)
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Drop by Daz 3d and buy me a Gift Card!
It's the Best Gift EVER!!!
After purchase, simply PM Dartanbeck at Daz 3d with the code
Thanks in Advance! Dartanbeck
Have a Question? Just Ask!
I love to help others as best I can. This is a rather broad topic: CG Filmmaking, so my articles on any particular topic may not answer your specific question.
Most of the questions directed to me are regarding Carrara or How did I do this?
For these sorts of things, post your question at the Carrara Discussion Forum (or another appropriate category) at Daz 3D.com forums, and if I don't see it right away, someone else might. They are such a friendly and helpful bunch! I've learned so much from that forum over the years!
For a more immediate question directed to me, log into those forums and Send me a PM!
and support this site at the same time!!! :) Thanks!!! :)