All in all I'd call Carrara the best value I know of in one-stop, do-all application in the low to mid price range. It is almost the ONLY contender on the Mac/OS-X platform. Very little can beat it for rendering (you pretty much need to go up to Max or Maya or something there. Firefly doesn't even come close), and the modelling tools are pretty robust (and very easy to use). It really depends on what you are doing with it. Animation, particularly character rigging, is easier in AM. As strong (and fast!) as the Carrara render engine is, Bryce and Vue-like environmental effects are not a current strength; if you mean to do mostly soft-focus scenes of sunrise through clouds on distant mountains go for Vue instead. And on the modelling front, Carrara doesn't offer the bag of tools some do. Cinema4D is much more LW like in the kind of interface and the tool set. Even more so, Carrara's tools are just slightly odd enough (and the perception of Carrara in the market is also that of a "beginner" ap), that you aren't going to get a job at Pixar with a portfolio full of Carrara models. That said, Carrara is leaping ahead. It was a decent little ap back in the CS1 days (well, it was pretty much Ray Dream with a Kai interface!) Then radiosity and sub-division surfaces came along, plus bones, then the tree generator, then add the functionality of Anything Grows and Anything Grooves -- and we've hardly scratched the surface of third-party plug-ins. And even more bang for the buck; last I heard you got Amapi 5.1 in the package, with it's odd interface but potent modelling tools. Easy to learn, comfortable to use, runs fine on older machines even. Plays well with other applications, importing most formats and exporting good useable files (unlike some I could mention!)