OK I have a question. How come everyone who gets mad at carrara says they are going to buy lightwave? I hate that program. Its VERY powerful but it has one wacked out interface...out of all the modelers on the market I just cant see what anyone's obsession is with that program. Have you seen how you have to keep animating around NULL points? How seperate the modeler/render are? Have you looked at the training material that newtek sponsors (its all seems aimed @ alpha based computer..not mac or pc)? I could have had all the lightwave training for free I wanted...they wanted me use lightwave..I just couldnt stand the sight of it anymore. I thought the Amiga version was nicer than 5.6 (the last version I used). LOTS of things make me mad @ carrara..I am about 50% decision to just go buy HASH or something else..but lightwave will NEVER be an option for me.

Well, it does have a nice name. Other then that I have no working expierience with it. I've used Strata, Infin-D, RDS & Carrara & would like to find something similar to RDS. I really have no need for animation & wish that the "big guys" would make that a seperate plug-in instead making options for the practicle stuff like "rendering & texturing". That's why I liked RDS/C, they were all-inclusive (for the most part). Hash, Pixles3D & Cinama4DXL look fairly good. If Amapi has a "great" offer I might force myself to learn it but I'm not thrilled with its UI either.

The reason I want Lightwave is simple. It's used in more movies and T.V. than I can name off hand. I had two teachers in school who used it professionally, they worked several movies with Lightwave. i've seen what it's capable of, period. Sure it's a very difficult program to use, but when mastered, it's beyond amazing. If you know Lightwave well, you have a better shot at getting a real 3D gig. Plain and simple, there is no other 3D app on the market that's capable of what it's capable of for the money. Hash Animation Master is very cool, I've used it, and I wouldn't mind getting it. But it's not in the same league as Lightwave or 3D studio Max(which I would get too, if I had $3,400 to spare. Lightwave is only around $2,000, for the difference I could buy another computer instead.