oh painting, i thought you meant sculpting. blender can do painting, its just very buggy and awkward. also it spills over seams in the uv map.

I have Carrarra 5 Pro...I find that its pretty good for High-Poly Models, but i still havent figured out the skinning yet...
If Carrarra 7 Pro is really that good, I might give it a try

You friendly, neighborhood
Doof

Lostclimate...isn't blenders' sculpting buggy as well? I remember reading of a lot of people having crash problems while sculpting.
And yet even after a google search I still have not run across anyone who whole heartedly endorses Carrara. That and the lack of a trial version makes me skeptical. Most people on the Carrara gallery seem to use it to play dress up with victoria. Though there was some nice original models on the WIP section.
I guess the search goes on for the "complete" 3d modeling app.

Yes. I was also searching for that and I think I found it.
My best bet is Modo, that is why I bought it recently. It is a good modern modeler, has the best uv-toolset, 3d-painting, sculpting, rendering and keyframe-animation. It misses only bones and character animation tools. But I am sure this will come soon.
Modo can be the best complete and affordable 3d solution next year.

In my case (I am a Lightwave user) this is already true, because Modo integrates perfectly into Lightwave (reads and writes LWO files directly and behaves very similar). So I even have all missing features there and both feel quite similar just like one application.

Blender indeed is a good candidate to become a full complete 3d application as well. But it needs some polishing in different areas (stability, im- and export, UI, 3d-painting).
Though it is free. But in my case I rather spend money for a stable and robust tool like LW instead of working in an unfinished app. But if you are doing it for a hobby, then you can be perfectly fine with Blender.

We will see what future brings. Some exciting things will happen in 2009 (at least I know this for sure in terms of Lightwave and Modo but the competition does not sleep).

And I will also watch Carrara. It has interesting tools like a terrain editor. But this is not a new feature for me since I already own a license of Vue. It can create and render terrains with lots of procedural materials, plants and can generate skies. Lightwave also has a tool to render skies. But Vue is prefect if you want to make a new landscape in just a few seconds.

the only bug i've ever found in scultping is sometimes in scultping mode the directions of the normals seems to be opposed (carving in will make it go out intstead) but that only happens once every like 50x i use it and the solution i always do is just export it to 3ds, reimport it, and its fine.

"Modo can be the best complete and affordable 3d solution next year"
I've heard a lot of good things about Modo, which emphasizes my point that I do not hear much good about Carrara (that may be a little to harsh).
the spec sheet on Modo and Carrara are very similar and even full price Carrara is much less then Modo. If Daz could integrate Carrara and Bryce (Bryce needs a full rewrite) and smooth out their glitches they could have the complete app.
And there is the problem... if Daz gets Carrara polished up I'll be kicking myself for not getting it at such a low price, Of course if they do not fix it then I will have the shame of being had once again

When considering a 3D app there is a lot more too it than price (and I think most here know that). I have Carrara 5 Pro and, frankly, I could never get into using the program. Therefore, no matter how little or much I paid for it, in my case it was money wasted. Modo is certainly more than Carrara and it is not as feature rich (i.e. it does not yet have full animation such as IK, bones, etc). Despite this, I can model in it very intuitively. As such, despite the higher cost, it was not money wasted (for me).

The best thing to do is see about getting a demo (does Daz offer one for Carrara?) and get down and dirty with the program. See if you can wrap your mind around how it works. If so, the Carrara could be the modeling package you need. If not, then even if it is a dollar, it could well be a waste of money and time.

Yes of course it is the sale price that is tempting me. That is what sales are all about!
It really is long term value that I am looking for, which is a problem that I have had with Daz. Years ago I got Bryce when Bryce and Vue were similar packages (even then Vue was slightly better) now vue is miles ahead of Bryce and Bryce has been semi-officially mothballed. The risk I see is that Daz will decide that Carrara is "good enough" and not improve it. I need a suite that I can grow into as my needs increase. And I do use my graphics software for business so I do keep an eye on expense. Right now Blender is meeting all my modeling needs, but they keep promising/threatening a major interface rewrite. It was a major shock last time when they changed a few of the hotkeys...can't imagine what a major rewrite would be like.
Carrara does have a trial version but it is for 6.1 and does not have any of the new features, but I can look at the interface.

Check out the trial of 6.01. In all likelihood, the UI will not change that much. If you can swing working in 6.01 then most likely you will get along fine with v7. For example, the 3DS MAX UI has not really changed since v1 ... not all that much ... and we are now on ... what? ... v9? Photoshop's UI has basically remained pretty much the same ... it looks better now and is a bit better organized, but it is still basically the same. Most 3D apps are not going to drastically change their UI unless there is a drastic flaw in them. And even then they may not. To change their UI drastically would cause them to alienate the people who have become familiar with the software and use it on a daily basis.

So get the v6 demo and give it a try.

I already downloaded the trial. Problem is that I am not an experienced enough modeler to give the program a workout. Which is one of the reasons why I posted here... unfortunatly most of the posters did not seem to like the interface.

"To change their UI drastically would cause them to alienate the people who have become familiar with the software and use it on a daily basis." I should send this as a warning/ advice to the Blender folks