I'm no authority by any stretch, but have tried Amapi, Ray Dream, TrueSpace and a couple other demos, and have had a hell of a time. I'm an artist, not a programmer, and have severe time limitations to do my work. So Poser has been the easiest program to build in, simply because the interface is idiot-friendly, allows me to maneuver primitives into place via morph dials, swing around and look for mismatches, and such (perhaps you can do that in TrueSpace, but I haven't found it). Even so, the process is very limited in Poser, and there are several modeling projects I doubt that I will ever be able to do, particularily with organic (living) figures, cloth and such things. If I can build it with a sphere and a cube, great, but if I need a tentacled beast, I have a problem. Additionally, as others have said, the resulting files are HUGE, because all of those polygons remain (i.e. every polygon of the sphere within the cube is still extant and still calculated -- no matter what the finished "size" will be, the number of polygons doesn't change). It would be some grouping challenge to go through and eliminate that. That said, if you're looking for about 8 different figures and a way to animate them, you may be able to create them with the figures that come with Poser and some free stuff from the forums (be careful there, because some are not okay for use in commercial projects), plus, you can also look into commissioning someone to model any additional ones you need. The Poser community is large, and there's a lot of product support to be had. If the number of figures you require is small, this might be more feasible, and Poser sure does give you movement and posing beyond the other programs. Plus, the interface is very versatile for those of us who can't maneuver in wireframe and don't have the time for the learning curve of bigger programs. Hope that helps.