In his review of the latest version of DAZ Carrara 8 Pro, Mike de la Flor finds a lot to like but raises some important concerns. For anyone who’s worked with the software in its various incarnations through the DAZ 3D acquisition in 2006-from the original Ray Dream days on up to the Eovia releases-you know that Carrara (and, at the time, the MetaCreations team behind it) introduced the idea of the trackball and shaded buttons to the pro animation and modeling market. Carrara 8 Pro is still just as easy to use and affordable as it was back then (relatively speaking), and the DAZ team, which includes several of the Eovia programmers, has since poured a lot of valuable features into the mix. But de la Flor asks, why has DAZ repeatedly ignored one critical feature set since it acquired the tool?
You may have wondered why SmartSound seemingly ignored the growing trend of scoring projects with lyrics-driven songs. Well, turns out they were working on it. Back in April, when the company debuted its indie pop/rock-inspired Voxation Series for Sonicfire Pro at NAB, it was responding to a growing customer demand for customizable, music video-style tracks. Maybe we’ve all grown tired of symphonic, quasi-inspirational background music and have come to crave those poppy refreshers amid the quickening cuts. Blame Glee and Gossip Girl and every other television show, commercial and film regularly scored with an old or emerging pop song-or the fact that most creatives working today grew up with MTV and continue to soundtrack their lives, and their work, with their iPods.

So while you’re limited to the layered tracks on the Voxation Series CDs and can’t lay down the Lady Gaga or Vampire Weekend song of your choice, at least you’ve expanded your options.