Ray Dream is a great program if you can get it for a good price. The "basics" that you learn will be applicable to most 3D apps and as noted before the transition to Carrara is fairly easy (don't bother to learn keyboard shortcuts though). Michael- That Nautilus model is great. I remember seeing that from a couple years ago. I've seen some of the movie sets and scale models of the ship at Disneyland a "long" time ago (BC in fact, before computers).