{Okay,Okay Im violating my promise not to post any more in this subject/thread} To tbsro: there are basically three classes of 3d/ animation software available 1) Freeware - $999 (poser bryce truespace hash etc,) programs in this range are targeted to the home user of modest means and ambition who is using off the shelf hardware and consumer level retail versions of popular operating systems Win 95/98 win 2000 Mac OS 7.6 or higher 2)$1000-$4000 (Newtek's Lightwave, kinetix's/Discreet's 3D Studio MAX ,Maxons Cinema4DXL etc) programs in this range are often used by major movie effects houses as well as middle to upper income individual artists with ambitions of working in the animation/movie effects business the "out of the box" version usally requires the addition of many Plugins before it is suitable for use in a major Hollywood production. the hardware required to effectivly run these programs efficiently is on the highest end of of what is normally offered to the average consumer and the operatiing system for these apps is predominatey Windows NT or a unix varient to some degree 3) Alias WavefrontsMAYA(complete) MAYA (unlimited) Softimage Pixars proprietary "Renderman" these programs are designed specifically for high level big budget fillm/animation work and frankly have no business in the hands of the individual user or hobbyist due to thier extraordinary complexity. and are designed to run on prohibitively $$expensive$$ Purposebuilt workstations( Silicin graphics etc.) these are not actually 3d programs in the traditional sense but more like Open source 3D interfaces for which you Hire Programmers to write plugins and scripts to give them their true high level functionality and produce the Ultra realistic Effects that we see in movies today. The pricing of these programs have NOTHING !! to do with anticipation of their programs being pirated on the internet or anywhere else. its all based on the intended target user groups that i described above Mocap