Carrara versus Blender
This article is not meant to point out which 3D program is better. It is merely to point out the difference.
Blender is free. Carrara is not but it is certainly one of the cheapest 3D program around that still pack quite a lot of features.
Of the shelf, Carrara is quite easy to get started with. Blender on the other hand has a rather steep learning curve.
Carrara has a powerful rendering system that can produce Global illumination based render. Blender on the other hand does not have global illumination capability except for ambient occlusion which is also not considered as true-blue GI system. Blender’s rendering capabilities however can be extended by external renderers such as Yafaray and Luxrender. Both programs have plugins that allow these high quality renderers to be interfaced with Blender.
Carrara comes with built-in features for the making of nature atmosphere and landscape. There is a realistic sky editor that can allow one to create nice atmospheric effects such as haze, fog and different kinds of clouds. You can possible the sun’s direction interactively with the realistic sky editor. You can also create terrains and plants using in-built generators for these objects. Blender do not includes these tools off the shelf, but an expert definitely can create them from scratch.
On the other hand, Blender has a very flexible interface that allows for customisation.
Blender has fast modelling tools. Carrara has good tools as well. But Blender seems to be faster for modelling once the hot keys are learnt.
As you can see both programs have different areas of merits.
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