Attached Link: http://visionized.com

My 2 cents: 8) Which in today's economy is worth about .5 cents........but I digress. I started with Poser/Bryce, moved to Amorphium, then to Anim8or, then to ZBrush, then Amapi and Wings and now I am using Strata3Dpro 3.7 I demoed: 3DMax, Maya, SoftImageXSI, Cinema4D, and LighWave I think people approach this all wrong as new converts. FIRST pick a soft that will teach you the basic principles necessary to succeed in the higher application levels. Throw Maya in front of someone who can't define "extrude" and watch jaws hit the floor. Start simple. You may end up preferring to model cars. Well that decision can affect the soft you use. You may end up enjoying the postwork more than the build. Well you'll probably want something that does alot of the "modeling" for you rather than a hardcore primitive start. Demos are fine when picking out a software (based on knowledge already had), but it's frustrating stuff when you don't know what the heck you are doing! (speaking from experience) Fabulous Free Starting Points: You THINK you want to model. You at the very least want to try. Better to start simple, learn the basic principles, and THEN move on (if you are still in love with the idea of course) Not only are these free, but their workflow can be "translated" to just about any "modeling tutorial". www.wings3d.com Wings3D www.anim8or.com Anim8or http://amapi.idevgames.com/ AMAPI These particular apps have their own forums and tutorials. I'll be honest, I'd LOVE to own SoftImage XSI. But I probably wouldn't use 1/3 of it and at 16K, that's NOT good finance. And isn't that the point? Getting as much bang for your buck and time? Find the application that fits the user's goals, not the "keywords" or "hot soft". If Anim8or is all you need, well more power to you. I've been kicking Strata around for a few months now, and I STILL don't know half of it. I don't have a favorite application persay. I have a favorite application RIGHT NOW, at this juncture of my career. And when my clients change, or my goals change, I may have to revisit the subject. But for my money, and needs Strata has everything including RAVix renderer, which is just an absolute KICK to render with... As far as tools etc. I think any application on the market that is recognizable by name has about the same as the next guy. They pretty much force each other to keep up the pace of subdiv, extrusion yadda yadda. Gamer's live in triangles, The rest of us live in quad (and sometimes triangles when we want to). We all want our soft to be polite. I HATE rude software. We want the GUI to flow naturally for us (and everyone has different opinions on interface). We all want a clean install procedure with no headaches. We all appreciate the little things coded in, like remembering which file I was last at saving a render. And to those extents, the Players are running neck in neck at times. It's not which app is better, it's which app is better SUITED for an individual's needs. And that's all I have to say about that. ;) Kat