Thanks for the info and tips Darkon. Rather than modelling in Rhino and importing into Maya to render, I am hoping to concentrate my learning on one package for modelling and rendering.

From looking around the SM site at projects people have been working on, I think it looks as if Maya can model everything I need that Rhino does, along with a renderer light years ahead of Rhinos. It may not be quite up to the holy grail of photo-real that I am striving for, but I think it will be me that is the bottleneck on the quality for some time yet !!!

I also think that Alias must be aware of their users views on the Maya renderer performance, so they must be planning to upgrade it in the not-too-distant future.

Yikes. I think after days of deliberating I have finally reached a decision on this Maya it is then!

Cheers,
Pete.