This might be something, I don't know. With the release of Poser7, we now have various levels of direct export of Poser content into PS for edit there.

But what about render? What if you had the power of Lightwave?

http://www.highend3d.com/news/Plug-In-Provides-Feature-Film-Quality-Rendering-for-Adobe-259.html

I am not sure if this could be warped into service, under automation, for the processing of image sequences into an animation, but for stills......NVIATWS with raytrace and all.

::::: Opera :::::

Thanks for providing that link, operaguy.  This sort-of provides an answer to something that I've posted inquiries about in the Lightwave and Photoshop forums.  I'll borrow your link, if you don't mind.

And oh, yeah......this post of yours is the kicker.

This has made me decide that I need to upgrade to CS3 Extended -- and not to plain-vanilla CS3.  Although I was already leaning that way, anyway........

$999 for CS3 extended + $149 for rendition.

While, LW alone is $795, and XSI foundation is $499. You could get Photoshop 7/CS/CS2 and either one of those and not only get great renderers, but also awesome modelling and anim apps, plus most of the tools of CS3.

shrug

I've already got Lightwave, and Photoshop CS.  So a move to CS3 Extended is an upgrade for me -- which IIRC, is $349.00 for Extended -- not full-price at $999.00.

$149.00 for Rendition -- when it comes out -- ain't too bad, either.