Product Reviews

Eovia has a tight hold on the 3D market with its range of highly specialised 3D programs, including Bryce, Amapi and Mimic. It also sells three different versions of Carrara, its general-purpose animation program. Carrara 3D Basics 2 is the baby of the range and is for those new to 3D graphics.

3D Basics 2 is excellent value. It provides a huge range of 3D graphics and animation features at a great price. However, newcomers to 3D work will find it something of a mixed bag.

The program includes an extensive library of ready-made 3D models, including cars and aircraft, items of furniture and building components such as doors and windows. There are also predefined animations and special effects that can be applied to your graphics simply by dragging them out of the built-in browser and dropping them on to relevant objects in the main workspace window.

Version 2 of Carrara 3D Basics also adds several new features for creating impressive 3D graphics.

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The new Scene Wizard allows you to quickly create entire scenes containing elements such as sky and cloud backgrounds, complex lighting effects or 3D text. Some of these new features are specialised, such as the Tree Modeller, which allows you to create impressively realistic models of trees. You have amazing control of the trees; you can alter the thickness of the trunk and even the size of leaves and the angle at which they hang. The program's Terrain Editor has also been modified, providing a similar degree of control when you create landscapes such as hills and mountains. But while it's easy to create these initial elements, the program struggles when you try to modify the objects you've created.

The interface is horribly complicated. The workspace is overcrowded with palettes and panels containing complex settings and parameters. Some of the individual modelling tools are also complicated, such as the Terrain Editor, which will seem baffling to anyone with no experience of 3D software.

There are several ways of viewing the workspace window, depending on whether you're assembling the basic elements of a scene, working on a particular model, or selecting texture or rendering options. It's easy to get confused as you move around and the program sometimes switches views automatically without warning.

Carrara 3D Basics 2 scores well for its features and value. However, Eovia needs to pay more attention to the basics, such as interface design and ease of use, to tempt new users into exploring the world of 3D graphics.