Things I love about Vue d'Esprit: + Vue does both landscapes and interiors with equal ease. + The interface is informative and incredibly intuitive. You'll be making pictures within minutes of installation. + The render engine is very fast compared to similar programs. Transparency and reflections slow it down some, of course, but even with them, it's still fast. Most of my images are rendered in less than a hour. + I haven't used the animation utilities, but I like that they're there if I ever want them. Objects, cameras and materials can be animated. + The scene hierarchy is set up with layers, sort of like viewing a written outline. Very easy to work with, and all the information is visible at a glance. + Materials -- generally overall, I love how materials work in Vue. There are so many options! + The terrain editor is the best I've ever worked with. Again, it's very intuitive and simple to work with. It also has a lot of "bonus" features. + Lighting -- the default lighting isn't the best if you want to achieve a photorealistic effect, but once again, the options for adjustment are numerous, and you can easily achieve almost any kind of lighting you want to use. + Vue imports all of my favorite formats and a few others besides. + A good set of primitive objects, and super-simple Boolean operations. + Vegetation, vegetation, vegetation!! :D SolidGrowth lets you build an entire forest without every tree being identical and without overloading on polygons. The SolidGrowth trees and plants are also a lot of fun to play with. With a simple change of material or proportions, each tree or plant can become an entirely new species, so a single SolidGrowth object is akin to having a large selection of vegetation models without needing a dozen different models. :) Varian