If I had to rate it 1 to 10 (1 being somthing like Bryce 1 and 10 being Maya), i would give it a 4&1/2. Pros Very nice procederal shading Cool deformers Quick and Easy animating Fast rendering Friendly interface Well organized tools and functions Cool volumetric primatives such as fire, clouds, and fog Cool particle systems Built in sky generator Cons Weak modeling techniques (basic splines (lofting, extruding, sweeping ect.), metaball, and polygon modeling) below standard render quality Poor integration between modeling and assembling Cheap terrain primative No caustics No bones No fusion Unpredictable/exagerated subdivision Poor antialiasing I could keep going but i think you get the picture. Its a decent piece of software and the new Carrara Studio is worth the price because its bundled with Amapi. I would recommend looking around at other packages before you buy Carrara.