Yeah... I was talking to the professor who's gonna be teaching the class, and he says basically, with maya, you have to know where everything is to get the full use out of it.. most of the stuff's half-way hidden. As for what it's got, lets see: Absolutely AWESOME rendering, realistic hair that you can pretty much "paint" on (that also moves realistically when you move the object, etc), the ability to "paint" in 3d (ie, you make a 3d object, then you can just paint it in, and paint a few copies, and make it animate that easily...), collision detection, and so much more it's pretty much impossible to list everything.. I still have yet to get over there and start playing with it... Rosh