Attached Link: http://www.wings3d.com

Well I'm a real newbie but I'll throw in my thoughts anyway :o) I've tried a few different apps and not got on with any of them very well. Amapi too unstable, Amorphium just plain unusable, Strata never got anywhere. Cinema and Lightwave are the two well known apps that have made some sense to me. Cinema has a great renderer and you can start producing really easily but the modeller is driving me NUTS! Every time you split a poly it adds a load of new edges, some in the most illogical places, that then have to be deleted again - if it will let you, it doesn't always! If you split a poly diagonally (triangulate) chances are it will split in the wrong direction and you have to undo and go through a series of menus to alter the point order GRRR! It's like russian roulette. Lightwave is growing on me thanks to TRAVISB's tutorial (When are we getting the next bit Travis?) and a lot of experimenting -I just discovered the Add Edge tool! I don't have the remotest idea about the rest of the app though and even if I did produce a decent render my discovery edition would screw it up with an horrendous watermark.

I'd like to put in a vote for WINGS3D. It's a straight subd modeller, no whistles or bells. No Booleans, Splines, no Lathe or Nurbs and the renderer is next to useless.
BUT it's really easy to use, lets you do exactly what you want and it's FREE.
I've heard of Pros using Maya, Softimage, Lightwave and Max who prefer to model in Wings, it's THAT GOOD.
So at the moment I'm using Wings and rendering in Bryce (Slow but good and REALLY cheap!)

Baz