Quote - lightwave is a high-end 3D app, it's just it isn't an industry standard like 3D studio max or maya!!

It depends upon the industry, and the requirements; Lightwave is very popular in the film and television industry for its renderer, and also for its ability to create mechanical models that stand up to close scrutiny. It's not as good at organics, however, which is where Maya shines, but it's not unusual to see organic models created in Maya that are rendered in Lightwave for video or digital output. 3DS is a heavy hitter mostly in the gaming industry, though not so much in video production. None of them are what I would recommend for landscape generation, however - Vue is probably the best bet there, not the least reason being that one can get the stuff out of it into another renderer, if need be - something that is impossible to do with the Booleans in Bryce (although Bryce will export meshes - B6 looks to be correcting this shortcoming, finally)