Thanks folks. Looks like I'm leaning toward Vue but I'll give some of the other recommendations a look see. thanks again.

The way it was written felt like we were at an art exhibit and you were explaining your piece from a designers perspective. The tutorial had a nice flow to it. Im a beginner myself with only a basic familiarity with all the features. I enjoyed and followed the tutorial with no problem. The intermediate should have no problem with this exercise. Yes, it would better be classified as an Exercise. e.g., This is how it was done now using similar techniques try this exercise on your own.

I'm in Arabesques's boat. Been playing with Bryce, Vue and Poser4 demos. I'm not a pen & paper artist at all, but I have a lot of patience and imagination. I will want to place models to scenes with the option of animation. So I'm leaning toward P4 and the Vue bundle. Poser5 appears to be not quite there yet. My dilemma is this...I'm into the fantacy and MMORPG genre of gaming. So many of my expected creations will not be Barbie and Ken models (no offense). So will I find myself constantly buying 3rd party models like those from DAZ and others just to get different body variations, i.e. Muscularity, hair styles, clothing, 'species'... etc. This is why I thought Poser5 would be a better choose. Unfortunately it doesn't work :) Well its buggy and not yet compatible with Vue and thats a must for me. I guess if I put enough time in either of these programs I could get what I want out of it eventually. But as a newbie, Id rather be putting more time into learning and creating curve and less time just trying to get something to work at all curve. Any comments, please...