"had no idea game models where vertex/mesh based" I didn't realize you were quite that new to 3d. I don't want to mislead you. If you do anything where, as an artist, you might need to share files with other people (something I don't have to worry about as a hobbyist) then you'd be much safer with Carrara. Carrara handles the major poly file formats which is what most of the world works with. AM does not. AM rocks, but you're pretty much stuck in the AM universe when you work with it.