Ok, I thought this was just Metaseq acting up with my graphics card but Blender does this too. 

When I go to attempt to box model a head I do it in the fashion of drawing in edges that I need, keeping subdivisions down to a minimal.

In Mod Tools I can do it quite fluently but Mod Tools has its own, specific edge creation pencil which is different from its knife tool.

Metaseq and Blender feature the knife tool only.

The problem that I'm having in both programs, even with occlusion turned on, is when I go to create and edge, say on the front of a cube, the vertice on the top edge and vertice on the bottom edge will sprout two more edges creating a triangulated face on the top and bottom of the cube.

Is there some function that needs to be turned on besides occlusion that will force either program not to create extra triangular faces to connect to the edges that I"m attempting to create?

Also, if this is a bug and it's worked out in Blender 2.5 - would you suggest just going for 2.5 even though it is still unstable?

Blender I don't know
Metasequoia - command> knife>cut straight faces. Drag between two lines and this will add an edge loop.
I can't for the life of me replicate what you have done.

 Maybe it's my processor or graphics card hindering both programs. Hmm....I know when I use the knife I'm not exact on the edge I start a little over the top one and end a little below the bottom one, but it's quicker and more efficient that way instead of trying to start perfectly on the edge itself, unless that's necessary. 

Also, blender puts away the tool after creating one edge, so I have to keep hitting 'K' to pull up the drop down and reselecting it for each edge I make. 

I see your problem now.
 
Its the second one down in the knife command

 Midpoints?

The 'exact' cut keeps making envolopes now. I also think that my choice of global/local and perspective/orthogonal might be messing me up in some of these programs.

For instance, hair creating in Mod Tools function if your working it from a static viewpoint like side, top or front but if you're working it from 'user' it has all sorts of chaotic reactions.

I've got Blender opened right now, lemme try midpoints.

 VERY bizarre - still creating envelopes.

If I remember back about ten years ago I had the same problem in Studio Max on an different computer so it's more than likely due to some standard set up for modelers that I'm ignorant too.

 Hmm....also, thinking about mesh modeling, wouldn't an edge creating tool be heavily used often? That makes it seem even stranger that it stores itself back away after just one cut. Multi-cut creates a whole bunch of random cuts at once.

I've download a knife tut video so I'll give that a peek. Think it's actually an Metseq tut but same problem for both programs so one tut for either might help. 

 Ok it was a short silent video but the guy demonstrated, in Metaseq, right off the bat how to make the mess that I'm making. 

It had to do with perspective. He had lin, fac & Img selected but not 'Fr' .....what's an 'Fr'?

You might like these, airflames. They're all Metseq video tuts. The one I dload and watched was simply called 'Knife.'

http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15133&start=15&sid=96f55fb1f9fc9649cb6270b2e2420404

 Well that fixess my problem with Metaseq at least. New version released. I'm going to buy it if he puts an english version out. 

Fr is front - orthagonal - will only affect what you can physically see.
Edge extrude - press H on your keyboard select a line and move.

Did you get yuor 'strange vert selection sorted'?

To get the result you want, you'll have to split all the faces at once, not one at a time.

For Blender, use "Loop Subdivide..." on the Mesh | Edges submenu (Ctrl-R)

 Airflames, Metaseq is sorted, I haven't experimented with orthogonal face in Blender yet.

Nrudock, yeah for the basic shape of the head to pull it into an oval I'm going to need two or three long and lat edges running a complete loop around the whole cube.
I'm just concerned with later on when trying to knife in details like eye socket rings and mouth. The knife keeps storing itself back away after only one slice.

I'm trying to remember my box modeling experience in Max ten years back. I think the artists didn't cut out the details with knife. Instead they started off with heavy subdivision and simply selected edges and verts from that.

 Of course taking into consideration all resources in Blender, perhaps it is meant to pull the head into the basic egg shape, then pump up mulltires to actually carve in the detail, drop multires all the way back down again and then meshsmooth the entire object.

Blender is currently not able to create n-gons.  An n-gon is a face with more then 4 vertices, while they can be useful when editing a models topology you never want to leave them as n-gons.  A lot of rendering engines can't use n-gons, DAZ Studio and Poser both have problems with them and almost all game engines need the models to be all triangles.

I don't mean to seem rude, but from reading your other posts I feel you are relying to much on sculpting instead actually modeling.  Sculpting should be used as a way to add that last bit of detail to a model.

 Jestmart, I full-heartedly agree. Basically, at this point I'm only making models and painting them to copy /paste a screen print of them in Gimp or direct render just to show to friends and people on the web but ultimately I'd much rather be using polygonal modeling moreso than programs like Sculptris for the simple fact that I learn more that way.

When it comes down to it Sculptris accomplishes everything I'm trying to do production-wise but definitely not education-wise.

This is why I've recently taken on Blender to learn the more painstaking yet quality way of doing things.

Thanks for the def of n-gon, I was wondering what this was and not realizing that was what I was attempting. I got the n-gon idea from some of the older head modeling tuts out there where the artists took a cube and cut in only the edges that they needed and then scaled and translated them to pull out the shapes.

Is there a good Blender head tut that shows another way of head modeling without n-gons?

 Actually this n-gon information has helped me a lot because not only has it save me from a wild goose chase around forums but also explains why some of my Mod Tools models deform the second they get into Sculptris (Mod Tools can handle n-gons, assumedly for those with intention of just presenting a render from within Mod Tools itself).

Blender Artist is a good site to learn about the program.  The other members are very know a lot about Blender, even some of it hidden tricks, they can be a bit cranky though.  BMesh is a project to try and add n-gons to Blender.  The thing to pay attention to when modeling is the topology, how the edges flow, n-gons are useful for editing that but if plan for it in advance you can get by without them.  The planning in advance is my biggest weakness and is why I only have a handful of projects done and about three times as many in various stages of development.  Wings 3D can handle n-gons and a lot of what you learn in it can be applied to any other modeling program, it just the interfaces that are different, many have pretty much the same tools just applied a little differently.

 I shall look up and bookmark Blender Artist!

I can't get a grasp on Wings....the bounding box thing throws me waaaay off track. It was the same for Houdini, I love the way Houdini looks when you open it up - like there's all sorts of cool things that you can do with but having to worry about a bounding box around an object, as well as the object itself, really confuses me.

In this respect Blender is actually easier to figure out than Wings or Houdini because it tends to be in more universal format with Studio Max (which I'm assuming most people started learning in).

Wings and Houdini feel as if they are geared more towards advanced enthusiasts looking for something new.

You know you can use Wings just fine without ever touching the bounding box commands? It's just an alternate way for convieniently placing or scaling things.

If it's navigation that bugs you, use the A-key to aim at whatever's selected and that will center your view on that. (Probably differing "camera modes" and other prefs that confuses things too.) I'm sure you could get help, but that's probably worth another thread.

 Thanks for the info, I just realized that Blender plays around with a bounding box as well if you go and subsurf your model. It appears to be a way to still edit an object despite the fact that it's poly count is too high to micro-manage directly.

Houdini might have an alternate modeling feature as well. I haven't really put much time into Wings or Houdini, I just remember trying to convert a file to obj through Wings and it imported far too small. Attempting to scale to 'BB" I was bit lost because I didn't know how to scale the BB itself.

Quote -  

Is there a good Blender head tut that shows another way of head modeling without n-gons?

For Blender Tuts go and have a look at Blendercookie.com. They have some excellent videos on modeling a figure using various methods. Try to find those by Jonathon Williamson who explains very clearly what he is doing as he's doing it and more so when things don't work the way they should.

 Also the knife tool in Blender 2.5 does not work properly yet and is a known bug. Remember that 2.5 is still Alpha at the moment so any serious work should be done in 2.49. If your happy to play around though 2.5 is a good option. That said though, I now do most of my modeling in 2.5 and revert to 2.49 only when I have to use something that is not yet implemented ( or porked) in the new version.

 Thanks, Touchwood. I've got Blender Cookie bookmarked but haven't had time yet to get a good look at the site thoroughly. =)