" ... then export and render outdoor shots with Carrara." I don't use Blender, so I can't answer most of your question. Also, I am not a modeler. But I do have a vast amount of purchased 3D elements (characters, props, light rigs, etc.) that work perfectly in Carrara, and not many are native Carrara format (*.CAR). In particular, Carrara works seamlessly with Poser format elements, adding their Runtimes to the Carrara browser and loading them directly from there. So I look at Carrara as the animation setup and rendering studio, and find it very powerful. I'm pretty sure Blender can export a format that Carrara can import (if not Poser CR2, PP2, etc., then OBJ?), you might give that a try.