I mainly use Bryce for scene creation - its fairly simple and you can get some good results. Rendering is a bit on the slow side though. Its modelling capabilities are quite limited though. Lightwave - I have an old version of this and its got a great modeller. I haven't done much with its renderer, but the latest version of LW looks really good and it renders fast. Also, Newtek are having a sale on lightwave 7.5 at the moment - its about 1000US till the end of september, but by the sounds of it, you may not be buying that soon. Academic pricing if you're eligible is really nice too.

Dreams are just nightmares on prozac...
Digital WasteLanD