Hi s2success,

Maya's own renderer is very good.

Ok it doesn't have FG, IBL or any of that other fancy stuff but it's quick and if you put the work in with the scene lighting you can get outstanding results.

If you can't get on with the internal renderer you can always use MentalRay (as Steve so rightly suggested) which comes with Maya or look into other 3rd party renderers like renderman, turtle, rendition, maxwell......etc.

Give it a proper go and look into tutorials, you'll be surprised with what you can do with it.

Take it easy,

Mat.