Wings 3D is only a modeller and works well with Carrara. Its rendering features are really basic although it does support exteral render engines to a limited extent (yafray and pov-ray) but the support does seem a bit basic. I personally love Wings3D as a modeller. After understanding it, it is like modelling with clay because you have so much control over your mesh. and selecting things then manipulating is so easy. Browse the wings forum gallery to see what is there http://pub161.ezboard.com/fnendowingsmiraifrm17 but do remember that these images were not rendered in wings. It beats the sds modeller in Carrara hands down because it is so easy to pan round,select edit things,move things in odd directions,assign uv's and more. Blender is will at some point integrate the Yafray renderer into it which will give it some really nice rendering capabilities. At the moment there is a way of exporting to Yafray but I dont know much about it. There is some nice work out of Blender but not much (as far as I have seen). I did consider it at a point but I found it just to odd and different to what I was used to. Opening a file had me stumped! From what I hear it takes a while to get the good stuff out of blender cause it is hard to learn. I suggest trying both, wings wont make sense for a while cause it is a new way of working but I guess you will have to judge both of them by the results you see and how you feel about them.. In theory Wings+Blender+Yafray could replace Carrara but I think it would be a bit difficult to work with cause that is often the nature of free software but I could be wrong. I heard that some people really like it. For me I really like Carrara. Although the uv mapper does suck! you will probably end up buying another one but these are quite cheap. Hey Pixelmouse can you tell me about Ts6? I was considering getting it before I got Carrara. What is the interface like when you get used to it and what is the verdict in general. The modelling tools look good.

Carrara does very well in comparison to all of these. -Strata 3D Pro First up it is easier to use then Strata as it imports more file formats, the key one being the obj file format which I think may be crucial in working with zBrush. Strata does not import this and has to use the vrml format to preserve uvs on import. Carrara has native support for a lot of things that Strata does not like HDRI, Sud division surfaces and also features an SDk so that technical users can add features to the program if they want to. See www.digitalcarversguild.com for more. However Strata is a very capable program with some really amazing users like Chris Tyler http://www.stratacafe.com/profiles/profile_detail.asp?profileID=1249 and others. It also has a very nice user community. Both Carrara and Strata have modelling tools that I think are a bit odd to use and often users suppliment these with an external modeller such as the free excellent Wings program or Amapi. Strata has native support for hair, displacement mapping and fresnel shading, but this can be obtained in Carrara by buying the Power Pack module (has many other features included) which in combination with Carrara is still about 200 dollars less than Strata. I think the Caustics in Strata look better though. For another hundred you can get a Flash expot module (Strata come with one). Radiosity in Carrara is VERY fast and is easier to work with as there are less parameters to mess around with. I am using an Athlon 850 and am very happy to leave radiosty on during test renders as often they take only a few minutes. Recently the Strata render engine has been optimised too and you can get good times out of it when you understand the parameters from what I hear. Features wise and value for money Carrara is the winner as it has more and costs less. However you must decide which program 'feels right'. I could not get on with the Strata interface because it just did not suit me. -Cinema 4DCE I did give this a breif go but I again did not feel very comfortable with the interface. The professional applications just feel to clunky to me. Carrara supports radiosity and Cinema 4DCE does not. For me the only reason I would learn CE is so that I could move on up to the newer version at some point but if this is not the case I think Carrara is a better option as a rendering solution. I am not sure about the modelling tools in CE, I think they might be really good. They definantly are in the later verions. -Amorphium I have not used it much and when I did I did not like it. It is very unconvetional but the unique tool set may prove useful depending on what you are doing. As far as it does not support Radiostiy. I think zBrush will overlap a lot of its features. -Carrara (my views) A program that is really maturing quickly. Version 3 made me a convert. I dont usually spend much time with demos but after 20 mins with the Carrara 3 demo I was convinced it was what I had been searching for. The interface is a bit "pretty" which will turn some off but this is forgivable as it is very well though out (most of it ;) ) and is one of those programs that when coming from another program is very easy to pick up and learn. However it does have a lot of depth while still being 'friendly' which is crucial for me. A few things irritate and there are a few bugs but none that are significant enough to make it unpleasnt to use. I think the best thing is to try the demos and see for yourself. I mention radiosty as a key feature beacuse it is an important feature to me but you may not want it. Which program you use is really dependant on what you want to do and your preferences in interface style. Good luck choosing

thanks for the answers