Interesting discussion guys. I had the feeling that the level of activity was falling off dramatically here in the Carrara section.

I think the prices on LightWave, 3DS Max and Maya are falling because each is jockeying for a larger share of the market and initial development costs have been re-couped. Now the race is on to see who will become the industry standard, and to do that [at least in part] is to have the biggest number of users out there who gravitate to your product as a first choice. [and...as for capitalism being a very bad idea, look how far Marxism got. At least for the Marxists, the price was right!:) and for you "3D Power To The People!", Maya is giving it away these days with their Personal Learning Edition. Can't ask for too much more than that.]

I'm pretty happy with Carrara, though I've never gotten quite at ease with the texturing system. [I came over from StrataVision]. I still wish I could project a texture onto one side and straight through the object.

But I've continued to hang out here because I find the UI to be the least cluttered, easiest to use, easiest on the eyes.