lightwave is very easy to learn,i just needed 4 days for it but the truth ist that im still using carrara more than lightwave,carrara is really fast,i mean global illumination ist faster then in lightwave and motion blur is also much better and plugins for carrara are much cheaper. i dont understand why so many people think that carrara is something like a kiddie tool or dont even testing it to see what it can do. i think carrara is coming fast and also rocks,i cant wait for version 5. PS:i like the strata stuff.