Shade is a good modeler. But for what you want, you'd do better with Vue Infinite. The learning curve is far shorter. If you get Infinite now, you will get a download version of Vue 6 Infinite free as soon as it is available, and I would suggest checking out the Vue 6 info at the e-on site. This is a major update/rewrite. It will have excellent integration with Poser ( V6 will read the shader trees in P6, so things you set up there transfer over), and for the first time you will be able to repose a figure from within Vue. With the new radiosity engine V6 will be able to do both indoor and outdoor lighting, then there's the new atmosphere model to permit volumetric clouds, translucency and true radiosity to permit subsurface scattering. There will be a new version of the ecosystems, which will give you far more control, and the ability to select and relocate individual instances in an ecosystem. Between the growing furniture/building/room structure libraries at Cornucopia3d, and all that is available for Poser that could be imported, you won't have any real shortage of items to use.