gundamvi said:
Lightwave is fantastic. Assuming that you've got a decent background in other illustration programs, you should pick up the program pretty quickly. It's not cheap, but it's render engine is second to none.
There's also tons of web-based tutorials out there, so learning new tricks is a snap.
Still, the lightwave suit is not for the faint of heart. If you're not committed to learning the software, you'll have a very expensive paperweight.
My experience in Strata has been blah. My models look great, but the lighting in the render engine makes things look
well
"rendered" when what I was going for was "realistic."
Haven't used blender, but a guy in my office has. He says it's OK. Better than strata, worse than Lightwave.
I've got nothing else, unless you count the RayDream Designer and AdDepth I used to run on my Mac Quadra.