hey ede its funny, but i had the same exact question about 3 months ago. we were growing out of poser/rayt dream/bryce, and needed a higher end package for animation. we decided to go with max, and have been totally satisfied. a great combo is max and Konan's Maximum Pose. the rendering in max is unbelieveable. also if you can afford it, get character studio, its not that hard to learn and really great for character animation. if you have any questions e mail me eli