Quoll (and reiss), sounds like a perversion of the facts. You may well speak for yourself and a vocal minority of 3ds users probably not the majority. I figure that if Poser didn't offer you something that 3ds didn't, you wouldn't be here in the Poser Forum to have this conversation, not so? I'd be willing to bet that 3ds and Maya recovered the majority of their deveopment costs years ago. Setting the cost as high as they do only serves to keep the "lower classes" from having access to "professional level" applications. Lightwave, from what I hear, has had more development costs than either maya or 3ds max - yet it's cheaper than either one.(If I were spending money on a high end app, lightwave is the way I'd go. They are at least trying to keep it real.) In short I think that it's high time that more people had access to 3ds max, maya (and lightwave). 1 cents worth - (I'm saving my money), - TJ