hey thanks for the input. The reason I would have to buy MR seperately is because I'm guessing it would cost more to upgrade to a new version of Maya that actually comes with it. I'm actually several versions behind in my version of Maya, so I'd basically have to buy a brand new copy.

I suppose I'll just stick with the default Maya renderer for now though because if I do get something, I'll probably get something really good like Renderman or MR, but I don't have enough money for either right now because of college. :\

Perhaps another question I could ask is what makes a render better than another render? I know good lighting and tesselation and HDRI and blah blah blah, but what is the biggest difference between say the best Maya render and the best Rendman or Mental Ray render? Are images sharper? Do textures come out better? I really just don't know myself...