I am basically a newcomer to this hobby.
Fortunately,I have Zbrush and Maya 4.5.
Also Carrara 3.
Some of the works I have seen here have mentioned “rendered in ( rendermann, mental ray etc)”
Can someone please elaborate a little bit on
outside renderers.
Price, quality, Is buying a separate renderer worth the money?
Which ones are the best
Will all renderers work with all 3d programs that render?
Anything you can tell be would be helpful.
Many thanks for what may be a stupid question.
With your Carrara 3 you have a very sympatic renderer !
A french star of CG*, marcel, use it in connection with Zbrush 
Pilou fan of marcel
Ps CG = Computer Graphic (art)
Are you doing animation?
If you’re just doing illustration (like me), then you probably don’t need an external rendering engine (assuming your machine is fast enough to give you good renders at a reasonable speed).
I use Carrara 3 too, but I haven’t yet produced anything in ZBrush and rendered it in Carrara - so I can’t tell you any new info from personal experience. It is a very good rendering engine, but I’ve found that it won’t do displacement maps (or am I missing something?).