Well, for simple short animations, poser 5 and carrara 5 are pretty easy to go with. Can do the animating in Poser 5 and then just render it in C5 standard or pro, I think thet're both the same as far as poser is concerned, but if you have C4 already, i'd upgrade to C5Pro, (Just me) cause it really is a lot richer overall for the upgrade price. Transposer works just fine with clothes and props and dynamic hair etc... No apparent disassociations that I have seen , but all your animating needs to be done in poser and then exported to C5P, native importer can alter the placement of shoes etc if you conform them in poser and import to carrara, but you can repose in Carrara and control orphs etc. I still use transposer more because it's easier for me. If you're not worried about 169 bucks go with c5 pro...better upgrade, more capability overall.