Thanks for the recommendation, 0oseven. I agree with the quality of Mark's tutorial skills from some excerpts I've seen (here at Renderosity for Poser and I think there were some sample Carrara ones I saw a while back just as I was trying Carrara for the first time).

While not wishing to start any debate on Poser/Carrara (partly because I like them both) I do find that I seem to get better results in animating characters in Poser. It may be down to such very simple differences as Poser having a default timeline of thirty frames (1 second, I think) while Carrara has four seconds default. Someone like me comes along, arranges a pose and moves along the timeline (taking a guess at how far to move) to make the next pose. Somehow I always make a better job of it in Poser's thirty frames but, of course, the remedy is simple for doing the same in Carrara.

The other default of Poser of having both feet locked in IK helps me too. This restraint prevents the figure losing position unless I want it to. In the DAZ forums I've had help on how to set this up in Carrara. So, again, the remedy is there. But selecting body parts seems easier to me using Poser because the outline of the body part gets highlighted on selection. I get frustrated in Carrara trying to select bones whether directly or by using the Scene tab. Often I select a limb in the scene tab and then lose the selection (or select another body part) when I try to move the Gizmo. Poser is - for me - far less finicky in that respect and the Parameters are easier to get to if I want to use them. For Carrara I've heard of the ERC plugin which is probably a brilliant answer to this and there is also the right-click pop-up menu for selecting body-parts.

Another reason I may find animating easier in Poser as opposed to Carrara is that, in Carrara I'm usually working with a figure in a whole scene, whereas in Poser I usually just try animating a figure in an empty place just for fun. Having to relate a figure's movements to the props of a scene is obviously more complex.

One feature I had hopes of from Poser was BVH export - to create motions in Poser and bring them onto different figures in Carrara - but I always seem to make a mess of this. I guess reading the manual on this point would help!

Hope I haven't waffled too much. And I don't mean to sound off in any way against Carrara - I'm just mentioning how Poser helps me a bit.