Well, as someone very new (few weeks)to Carrara, I went ahead and bought it through Amazon. I'd say it's not quite bad enough to return, but not nearly as good as I'd hoped. I also have the Eovia manual, though, and between the two you get almost enough info to do something. Fortunately, I've worked on a lot of other 3d programs, so I've got a good idea of what it ought to do. I just go around figuring out how to make it do it. :-)