The advantage of using something like 3dsMax or Maya for rendering would be that they both ship with MentalRay (also used by XSI), which is one of the best production renderers you can get, short of PRman. You'll have access to some cutting edge features and FX, and get some good experience working with apps that are considered 'industry standards' in certain areas of CG. The disadvantage comes in using BodyStudio itself. In my experience with that plugin, it tends to make the application rather unstable at times (particularly when using it with other plugins in 3dsMax), and saving a scene with an embedded PZ3 can screw up your textures something aweful, unless you rename them all to something unique before you attempt to save. I'd take the advice above, and check out the features in the new Carrara 5 that's coming out in Dec. You'll have the ability to use SSS for things like skin, and some fast (really fast) Ambient Occlusion. Like Vue, it can also do GI and HDRI if you desire that. Also, it's said to import Poser scenes and, unlike Vue, gives you the option to automatically rig Poser figures natively in the application if you wish, which sounds interesting.

---

Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.