"If that is so then perhaps that is where the secret lies. A smart programmer." Actually, come to think of it, there's a good bit of truth to this. The best renderer I know made his own tools, as have many companies I can think of. I think the advantage is that they're highly specialized for what they wanna do (like SPIRIT), and thus are naturally better at what they're good at than an all-purpose prog (like MAX or LightWave, or much of anything else). Also, they generally aren't what you'd call user-friendly, from what I surmise, since the only people using them are the ones who already know 'em literally from the inside out, but hey. However, there are just as many companies and individuals that use MAX, etc. as make their own software, and they're about as good. Maybe can't do quite as fancy stuff (particles on some of the custom jobs are unreal in particular), but then again, they don't have to program either.