Vue d'Esprit is "the best" IMO for landscape generating....especially considering it's very reasonable price. Once you see some of the images created I think you'll understand why. I think pdxjims and Sharen summed up some of the pluses very well. I have Bryce 4 and while I think Bryce is better for some interior renders, it can't touch Vue for outdoor stuff. Vue's atomospherics are very real....not as stark as Bryce. Much better for setting a mood....almost like an oil painting :) You actually can use Vue and Poser 5 together without Poser 4 (in fact I've never owned Poser 4), but only in one of three ways: 1) you can create and pose a character in Poser 5, export it as an .obj and then import it to Vue; 2)you can create the background in Vue and use it in Poser or 3)you can save your Poser rendered characters as .tif's and layer them onto the Vue background, but you have to do a lot of postwork for this to look right. Exporting the .obj files is the best approach. However, you cannot use the P5 materials and you have to tweak transparency settings in Vue. They don't seem to export correctly, but it's not that hard to do. You also have to ding around a lot to help Vue find the referenced textures and sometimes (rarely)and for whatever reason, an .obj just doesn't export correctly from Poser 5, and Vue can't read it. Models like the one's Sam's 3d makes....in fact most any .obj or .3ds (not MAX), can be used in Vue without any problems at all, but some of the posing capability is not possible without Poser. The biggest problem with importing the .obj files is that some of them aren't that great if you plan to do closeups....especially people. You lose a lot of the clarity and smoothness that you had in Poser, and there are limits to what you can do in Vue with eyes! :) But it certainly works fine if the charcters you're importing are "supporting actors" and not the main focus. I highly recommend Vue and will like Poser 5 even better if they ever get that "Vue plug-in" created! :)