if you want to create your own figures and animate them and that is your goal poser may not be for you. if you got 3dstudio max, maya, lightwave etc then you could model, rig and animate to your hearts content. see any of the major movie releases to see examples of what can be done. on the poser end creatures, or character are modeled outside of poser, imported and setup for poser use, then you can use a set of plugins (additional charge) to host those back in your 3d program for animation. say you wanted to do a bunny rabbit animation. if you could find a rabbit model you liked for poser you could buy that, setup the animation in poser and render the animation with poser's limited animation tools. you could even with plugins use a 3d program and use the poser file and animation. currently for poser 5 the plugins for maya, and max, and cinema4d are by resse studios (spelling?!) those are additional charges. with a 3d program you could model your own rabbit, setup the animation and render the animation, no poser involved. I guess if you like what is availble out there for poser and can see using those models in your animations then poser would be the way to go. if want to do your own original models and animations, I'd say why bother with the extra step of poser unless you want to give away or sell poser items. my 2 cents.