Ron I think you've just found out what I was going to tell you. If they've got lots of features, like Blender, then they're not easy to learn.. Actually Blender is ridiculously hard to learn, but it is free, and it is AMAZINGLY powerful. I have to disagree about Amapi; I find that almost impenetrable. Therein lies the rub; any advice anyone can give you is going to be personal, one person likes this one, another a different..... The bottom line is; THIS AINT EASY, but it is incredibly rewarding and worth the effort. If you just want to learn techniques get hold of a 30 day demo of a program called MORAY. It won't be any use to you for POSER 'cos at the moment it won't output anything poser can read (though that may change, it's a modeller for POV) but it has the clearest easiest interface of any 3D app I have seen anywhere, and learning it will set you up for the others. I understand where you're coming from, I think the next on the list would be TRUESPACE. Now it isn't free BUT version 3.1 has been given away several times on cover disks so someone you know may well have a legitimate unused copy (it's worth checking out back issue orders of mags too) PhilC started with TRUESPACE, in fact I think he still uses it, so that's a pretty good recommendation yes? Rhino and Nurbs: without getting too techy; nurbs are great for modelling EXCEPT when you want to take your nice tightly coded small model file and translate it into something Poser can use. Then the file size multiplies horribly and you end up with monster big files, - and you know what Poser is like when you push its memory handling right? Don't go there. Don't get me wrong I've seen what Rhino can do and it is a fantastic program, but not for you right now. My second option for you would be Anim8or, mostly because it's free, but also because it isn't loaded down with lots of extra features. The interface is clean and fairly intuitive. Start small and work up, you'll be amazed what you can do. Hope that helps. Please remember these are only my personal opinions, someone else may have a completely diff view. If I appear to have insulted anyone's favourite program I apologise, didn't mean it that way, just looking at it from the point of view of someone starting out best wishes as always peejay