Good info. Import/export is important. So is rendering. The procedural textures being so limited w/o a plugin really got me. I am trying demos, reviews etc... A lot of demos are highly crippled tho, which I don't understand, I guess they are concerned about crackers. I actually researched and tried the demo before buying c4p, eovia's plugins cost more than the other devs so it was a better buy w/ the other features it had. The problem is you are trying to educate yourself about a complex subject and and the real deal on a product. The plugin thing is a slippery slope, trying to find what you will really need and what it will cost is tricky. Right now I want a versatile, productive and smaller budget tool for modeling and animation. I did not like vue 5 statement about anti-piracy feature causing instability(sounded weird). Thanks for the info again.

No need to think outside the box....
    Just make it invisible.