Thank you all for the inputs.

My 3D experiences are mostly Poser only (which I used to morph the simple avatar of mine here).  I had tried out Bryce 3 briefly long ago; I found it fairly easy to learn but hated its slow rendering speed.

I picked up Poser quite intuitively, rarely consulting with its manual or guide.  But I've heard that high end 3D apps like 3DsMax have steep learning curves, and never intended to go for it for my not-so-luxurious free time.   I got the fad with LightWave when I saw its current price...

I've downloaded Bryce5 from Daz3D, and will upgrade to Bryce5.5 soon.   Daz3D claims that Bryce6 is rebuilt totally differently from all the previous versions -- I hope that its rendering speed will be much improved, too.

I think I'm giving up LW for its learning curve.  I'm now considering ZBrush or Silo for my modeling purpose, and either Vue or Carrara for lanscaping, atmosphering and rendering  (for the reasons Fazzel pointed out).

So, martian_manhunter and MachineClaw, my questions for you now (sorry to bother you with more questions) are:    Carrara5pro or Vue5infinite, which has better rendering power?     And what are the cons and pros of either app?

Thanks again for your time and inputs.   I really appreciate it!

3DVim

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