I too would say you shouldn't even be thinking Max vs. Carrara. Not when one costs 10 times more. I doubt Max is 10 times better than Carrara. It may be better, it may even be 2 times better, but I have my doubts on 10 times. I'm starting to use Carrara for my renders over Poser (I do not nor plan to get Bryce, I've got plans for Vue instead). In Carrara you simply have many more elements you can control. From shaders to lighting to enviromental effects and so on. I've only had Carrara a month and I've already found several effects I could not do with Poser's rendering engine. Of course it may be that I just couldn't figure out how... :) Besides, it sounds like you've already bought Carrara; so it's a bit late to be asking these questions. You're stuck with it now. :)

Truth has no value without backing by unfounded belief.
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