I gave up searching for the free version of Carrara 7. Digital Arts canceled my order because I pestered them too much and they appear to be the only magazine that NZ distributors don't carry. We have tons of mag shops over here that carry nearly every mag possible but no one here has heard of Digital Arts.

I've checked the latest issues of 3D World over here and the mags are over $20 NZD and all their included discs carry are shareware and textures. Thhhhhpppppttt.

I think GIMP and Inkscape are the next big thing, as they are easy and free access to them THIS is what people will be learning and becoming comfortable with. There's a possibility, that if they ever sell their efforts, in a full-featured production, they could give Adobe a good run for their money because so many people will be more familiar and comfortable with using them.

I personally think that is Blender's goal - to eventually sell their software after they've laid long enough stake in society to train and accustom everyone as to familiarity and use with it. =)

 Update, I'm not sure about the animation end but textures still work in ShapeShop B5. If I ever came upon the $ I'd be more than happy to help fund this guy to further develop this software for children and folks that don't have the time to learn high-end modeling packages.

Yeah, Shape Shop's programmer just wrote back to me and directed me to Meshmixer as well. It's his other project that currently has more support.

But I tried installing and running Meshmixer last month and it won't run on my setup.

And I'm all for modelers for children. I think it would be a great way to get kids into 3D art!

 Speaking of someone looking to get something completed. This dude needs beta testers badly and is eager to get this program up and running:

http://www.crackart.org/

 Bugger, it's still being beta tested and the latest release has texturing and animation turned off...along with rendering. 

The stable previous release that had everything crashes on my AMD system, even with the 'patch.'

I hope he completes it...or Teddy's designer completes Sketch 3D or Fiber Mesh...or somebody completes something along the lines of this.

 That's cool. I'll have to check into it and use Inkscape as free training grounds for right now. =D

 Was I fairly spot on about what I thought Illustrator/inkscape was? I tried to use Illustrator way back in the day, not that I've opened up Inkscape, the little I learned about Illustrator seems to have finally sunk in.  =D

 What do you guys think of Paint .NET...erm for those of us whom have had the misfortune of having .NET on our systems anyway?

Quote -

Inkscape (not too versed)

Having a download and peek, Inkscape is a free Illustrator alternative. I believe the main idea behind those types of apps is that you can attribute those point curves to every object in a drawing thus giving full control to rearrange or manipulate them anytime you like, especially if they are on top of one another. 

This can be somewhat done with Photoshop, PSP, GIMP, POS PRO layers but not as exact as with Illustrator type software.

Although actual free drawing or painting with something like this looks impossible so I think, don't quote me on this because I'm not too versed either, I think you place down a pointed shape on your document and import your free hand drawn and painted stuff into that shape so that you can also have free control over moving and resizing those images as well.

Art Rage appears to be more of flexible free-hand-drawer for WACOM fun:
http://www.artrage.com/

Quote - Last year on another UK magazine's cover CD (or DVD)  I got a full working copy of Realsoft 3D... I could never figure out the interface as it seemed to be less then user friendly but I hear it's a very capable app....

I just learned my lesson - get it in the store where you can see what you're getting or don't get it at all. LOL.

 There are A LOT of 'left in limbo' modeling apps out there on the net. LOL. So I guess it's just good sticking to the small utility side of things. XD

It appears mostly everyone is using Wings3D - I don't know how to work with it properly, to be honest.

It seems to work in the same way that Houdini does where everything is orchestrated by a bounding box.

Until I figure out how to get somewhere with it, it's been a great resource for converting Mod Tools and Lighwave (non-commercial versions) files into Wavefront OBJs so that I can play with them in Sculptris.

Filmbox to OBJ conversions do seem to degrade the geometry a bit though. 

That's really cool. How long does it take to write a modeler? 

Link is back up.

Ordered, and the confirmation mail has stated that they're sending me LAST month's issue. 

So I've fired off a couple of emails and made a couple of costly calls to the UK and not quite sure if this is going to get resolved or not. 

Either way, just a warning in case anyone follows that link and orders.

 Interesting - linking to Digital Arts has ended up disabling Digital Arts. Now I can't order for the mag. =L

Quote - Carrara Pro ver 6 -  jsut got this about 2 months ago from a magazine's cover cd (3D Artist or 3D World - I think

It was Digital Arts.

Carrara 7 is being given away in the latest issue:

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/magazine

 Back when Blender first came out there was a beginners' guide that you could find pretty easily in bookstores. I'm not sure if they ever updated it but I had planned on sitting down with it when I finally got through the Max Bible.

I ended up tossing it all away though out of discouragement as the PC I had back then could in no way handle those programs like the old PC I have now does. So I mostly ended up with a text book education in 3D but that Blender guide had covered all of Blender inside and out.

I do know that you're not alone as a user and fan. There are tons of Blender users out there on the net and it's good to see so many people paying tribute to a quality design program that's generously offered as a freebee.

Once I get all the info hammered down that I need for Mod Tools I"m going to move back into Silo again but from what I've seen, it was pretty much a bare bones modeler for the modeling and sculpting aspects. If it had other features like stage set ups, hair or a 3D painter, they're all still hidden in a menu I haven't found yet.

I know there's someone here whom mentioned recently that they use Silo mostly so I'm assuming that it's a pretty competent app if you're video card will accept it. 

My card messes up with Metaseqouia which is a shame as I really liked that program.