Carrara, especially since version 5 and 5.1, has gained respect in the area that used to be considered Vue and Bryce turf: landscape, atmospherics, volumetric clouds, trees that sway and leaves that rustle in the wind,... there's a lot to explore.

Carrara is more sophisticated in the animation area than Bryce. It also has a larger set of choices for modeling, from the Spline to the VErtex modeler with tools that are reminiscent of construction-curve based tools found in Amapi (such as Gordon surface tool in Carrara 5 Pro).

Bryce is easier to learn in some ways, but Carrara is not difficult either. Hey, they all came from MetaCreation's dev team with a similar user interface in mind at some point, until they became MegaCremations that is.

If you need some inspiration: www.thebest3d.com/carrara  -  look for the examples/galleries by Markus Rothkranz.

There are a few good things about Power+Carrara too. But I don't know if the same is true for Bryce+Poser.

Carrara has also been known for long as a fast renderer. Way faster than Bryce I think. Again, things may have evolved.

-Philip