I would suggest that you get the demos. Just about all the major brands have demos except Lightwave (they have one but never sent after several requests). I got that dvgarage toolkit that was offered at www.universe3d.com on the popup window. Great value for $200. Fantastic modeler and animator. Comes with Amorphium Pro. Only downside is the modeler saves in .fac format and you have to run it through amorphium to convert to .obj. Lightwave is on my Christmas list. I think there's a poser plugin. Cinema is touted by many as very good to use with Poser. I didn't like the demo, but others love the program. If money wasn't an object, I'd get Softimage XSI. Maya has a personal learning edition for free on their site, good for one year. Full version but with watermark. Steep learning curve. I prefer Bryce over Vue, though Vue imports from pz3 better than Bryce imports. Again there's a demo. Also on my wish list is a 3d paint program. Deep Paint seems to be the best. I liked the demo but it didn't like my machine. BodyPaint is good also, but a bit strange to use. Or you could join the DAZ platinum club and go wild. Ok, that's my two cents.