I doubt they sell 2 copies of this thing.
I would think you would go with Rhino long before buying this product.

Well actually. one of the nice features of Shade 7 pro is the room creator plugin. great for fast architecture modeling. put in windows walls and doors, set some paramiters and hit extrude and from a flat 2d you have a 3d room model. for the price it has some really nice features that LE and Standard do not. If I had the money I would have bought Pro, only had enough for Standard, but least I can upgrade. BTW Rhino is ONLY a modeler, to really take advantage ya would need Flamingo render and that is a very high price for the average user. Shade Pro is cheaper and has a lot of tools for the price. I already know 3 poser users that have bought Shade 7 Pro, so, they have sold more than 2 copies.

Well that sounds good. However, I note from the comparison chart that starting with the Standard version, the program accepts Plus ins. I wonder if the room creator plugin is available separately; I'm about to wander around on the site to see. I hadn't seen any plugins showing as available separately before. Norm

You can get Rhino and Flamingo (student price) for like $300. Plus, you can try out all their features with the trial version.
I guess I just don't like the interface.

As someone who has used Rhino for a bit, I can say I am impressed with Shade. The interface is a bit different, but once you learn it I like it. And some things are very easy in Shade :) But each program is going to make different people happy. Look how many people like Amapi ! - Noel

Student Price is very low I will grant you that. However, student versions cannot be used for commercial purposes legally. I can understand not liking the Shade interface, or not having the program suit your needs, I don't think that's a basis for degrading it's marketplace though. I own Lightwave and bought Shade Standard, in 2 days of playin with Shade and the PoserFusion importer I've done more than I have owning Lightwave in a year. Phino and Flamingo are good products, they are just different. Artists have to find the tools that work for them and their workflow. While prices are coming down and becoming more and more available to more and more people there are many choices. Try everything on the market before making an investment. Shade clicked with me like LIghtwave didn't, doesn't mean I will abandon Lightwave, but the poser importer and price shure make it more interesting for my money. $300 for Educational Rhino or even $149 for Shade 7 Standard may seem like a drop in the bucket for artist tools, but it's an investment. Similarly investing in a poser figure and the clothing, abandoning that is a huge amount of money, and decisions on what to buy and what meets the need of the artist needs to be taken into account. I'm sorry you do not like Shade it's very useful in combination with poser, but there are other alternatives, I hope you find what works for you. norm - yeah that as a plugin would be very cool, dunno if that is gunna happen though guess we wait n see.

I'm going to give Shade a shot. It looks promising.

If you are going to try the demo, really do the tutorials that are there. cover some things like camera and lighting that once ya have done it make more sence. I got Shade installed and started hitting buttons without reading anything and was a bit confused, then read the tutorials and manuals and quickly came up to speed.

If you are going to try the demo, really do the tutorials that are there. cover some things like camera and lighting that once ya have done it make more sence. Thanks for the advice. It will come in handy. I am planning on purchasing the box version of Shade 7 Standard. If I like it well enough, I might upgrade to Pro.

Shade Pro is a successful product in Japan, so even if it tanks here, I doubt they'll lose much.

I remember people worrying that Poser was going to cost $1,000 like Shade when the news of the CL buyout broke. CL did ask us about prices in their surveys...and I bet everyone picked a low number. :-) So perhaps Pro is actually the main product, while LE and Standard were spun off for us cheapskates...

well then color me a cheapskate haha

Pro is what is sounds like, the professional version. The lite and standard can both do a LOT. The big differences are who is going to be using it. Pro can do some higher end rendering and can network render. Both good for a professional enviroment. For me, standard works great :) - Noel

I tryed the LE Demo and I do like it...a lot...but I will be saving pennies to get the standard version. I want plugin and python and the extra tool sets. UV MApping etc... I am oh so very close to the price now, Just a couple more weeks :)

Hmmm.... I wonder if we could convince them to come up with a 5 or 10 node network render upgrade for standard owners.... (looks longingly at the Vue rendergarden off to the right). I'd even be willing to pay a bit for it... (magic words?)

Oh, and the manuals alone are worth the upgrade price to standard, Xeno. 650 pages between two books; a 451 page user guide that is written so the utter beginner can get into the interface, and a 199 page reference manual for the technical talk (I got standard, btw).

Now that would indeed be very unusual. So far, in 20 years of computer work, I have yet to find a really good manual.

Actually, the LE version has the manuals as well, just in PDF form. They are quite good. May still upgrade later after I see what plugins become available.

I haven't seen the Shade manual, so I can't speak to it, but among the many I have seen, the C4D manual is among the very best ever written, IMO. Cris