Here we go again...
Vue - its an terrain and animation tools
Carrara - its a modeler, animation and render tool. In Carrara 6.2 you can load Poser content like you do in Poser, just drag and drop. To animate characters from Poser its very fine and you dont need to paint the weigt map for then (remember you are begining now). Carrara have Global Illumination too, Caustic and many other features that Vue also have. I will sugest that you download the Vue PLE edition and the Carrara Trial so you can play with both.
Replicand use Vue with Maya, so he animate in Maya the characters... this is almost the same combination in Carrara, some tools for almost everything from modeling, animate and render... (Carrara will not be Maya anyway, but still a easy and pretty tool)
You can checkout my demo reel that show what Carrara Pro 6 can do:

http://www.vimeo.com/1165994

And yes I love Carrara

Follow me at euQfiz Digital