I can't slam a gift, I got Shade 7 LE free when I purchased Poser 6. Though I am intriqued by the thought of modeling something, my primary interest is in composing scenes. I purchased the Shade 7 LE: Model, Animate, Render book and paging it through it I hadn't seen anything that was terribly intimidating or different than many of the other 3D apps I've tried using. Have you tried that book? It seems to be well written, though I haven't had time to work through the exercises in it yet myself. I am particularly intersted in how Poser figures will look rendered in Shade, but haven't tried that yet. I will agree that the interface leaves something to be desired, a point I stressed in the survey that e-frontier sent me, but as to whether the thing is simply unuable or I simply don't have the patience to learn it is another question entirely. I was somewhat amused by the renderings I've seen in the book that I bought, if people can do that kind of work with it, then it can't be all bad. I suppose it depends too on what your goals are and what you want to create with it. Software experience is rarely a universal with people, however, and while one person may be able to create a stunning, complicated model in Shade, someone else might not be able to do anything with it.

Message edited on: 08/28/2005 16:14

Message edited on: 08/28/2005 16:16