Inspire 3D is a very low-cost version of Lightwave. Like for around $350. It's a great bargain, but it is at Lightwave 5.6 level. I was ready to buy it when LW 6 came out, soon followed by LW 6.5. Lightwave 6.5 hit the most important needed feature- support for UVW mapping- so all Poser stuff imports very nicely (You have to fight it and re-texture in LW 5.6) But during the Christmas holidays, when NewTek offered their special $995 deal, I went ahead and got it. It's a lot of money, it will take me a long to time really learn, but its a package used by the pros. Plus, there is a really nice, inexpensive plug-in that imports Terragen scenes into LW. E-ON SOFTWARE (our Vue buddies) make a VUE-LW Plug-in too (OZONE) to use LW scenes... Also- Dan Alban's book "Inside Lightwave", being advertised here at Renderosity, really sold me. The Radiosity and use of High-Dynamic Range lighting (another whole big subject) really sold me on LW 6.5... SKY-DOMES- I got some really great free sky-domes from a website but cannot remember where now. There were no readme's- but it was probably from one of those Academic websites where people do this type of stuff for intellectual fun and games. They are basically a simple half-sphere. They are single-sided, with a 360 degree sky render (in this case done in Bryce) mapped inside. So when you pop a giant sky-dome over your scene, the beautiful sky is all around you in Pana-Vision. There is no reason why you couldn't do 360's of Terragen or Vue skies and map them like this also. It's a beautiful effect...