If it were me I would go straight to C2. that is a great price. I think even those that purchased Carrara Studio 1.1 and then upgraded to C2 only saved like another $50 if I recall. Get it while you can at that price. The differences between 1.1 and 2 are many. GI, Caustics, Bones, Subdivision, Better Poser import (well sorta), better OpenGL. If you have a Mac and run OSX then C2 is a must over 1. For OSX it features dual Processor support and much faster OpenGL support then 1.1, it is also more stable then 1.1 in os9 get the 2.1 update though. Regards, Paul