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A model @Cerbera and I worked on a while back, although we developed different versions, he went more classic where as I decided to model the version from revenge of the sith, as personally I think that's the best version visually, never texutred or renderd a final version after modelling the outside as i had intended to model a detailed interior, which i may still do. Threw this together this morning before work, I'll probably add some more post to this / make some tweaks when I'm home tonight. Be sure to view it full size in all its imperial glory :D

I would have to agree here with 3D-Pangel. I am more of a 3d generalist, and 3d is only a small part of my work. I'd say I use 3d software 85% for personal work, and 10-20% for paid jobs - as part of the overall workflow. My 3d experience goes back to 1986 on the Amiga (Sculpt-Animate 4D), and I worked with most 3d apps throughout the years. I first encountered Cinema4D on the Amiga, and loved it. I got a license, and continued to use it when I got my first Windows machine. But Cinema4D's upkeep was just too much to bear at some point for me. I have an older Studio version, with many addons, and paid through the nose for that. The updates kept getting less interesting, and more expensive - until the breaking point where I had to make a decision. The division of features between the various editions made no sense to me either - so downgrading wasn't an option either. And yes, I did feel somewhat held captive by MAXON's update terms when they introduced stricter rules. I then decided (years ago) to try Blender, and while it was different at first, I can now work faster than I ever was able to in C4D. But it isn't the fact that Blender has a pretty good feature set in comparison (and its rocket speed development in the past few years) that keeps me in the Blender camp: it's mainly the freedom I felt after leaving commercial 3d apps. There's none of the financial stress involved, of course (and I support the Blender Foundation financially), but for me it is the openness of development/road-maps, the fact I can test new features as they are being worked on, the fact the main developers personally involve themselves in helping users (where it makes sense). And that I can download the source, and build my own version. In short, I feel entirely FREE since I switched to Blender. When a new version of Blender is released, it feels like Christmas to me: a lot of cool new things to play with every time, and for 'free'. While with Cinema4d, when a new version was released, I'd feel stressed out, because I'd have to check my financial situation whether I'd be able to afford it, and whether I'd WANT to afford it. And MAXON, as a company, is pretty tight-lipped as well, which I feel is a very old-fashioned manner of doing business nowadays. Just compare the guys behind Unreal, 3DCoat, or Substance Painter, and how they deal with their customer base. After I bit the bullet, and dropped Cinema4D in my workflow, I felt a big sense of relief. I am still interested in C4D's development, and I still do download the trial versions to test drive out of pure interest. Of course, these are just my personal observations.

MAXON may not realize (yet) that there upgrade policy is a double edged sword. On the plus side it holds us captive because the cost of opting out of any upgrade can be very high if you decide to upgrade later. If you miss more than two releases than you might as well purchase a whole new license. So this is a plus for MAXON as it protects their annual revenue should they decide to go light on any individual upgrade. We keep upgrading each year because it is cheaper in the long run. Plus we keep hoping that the next release will be "the big one". The downside for MAXON (that they better start to embrace) is that should your patience finally wear out because the current upgrade is weak is that when you opt of upgrading, that due to the higher costs of upgrading later that you are in fact deciding to leave C4D for good. Now I would imagine that the percentage of users who opt of any upgrade is not enough yet to threaten MAXON's earnings....in fact, I think they are making more money than ever. So MAXON has everything going in their favor. We are a captive user-base and MAXON can continue to support their development at a pace that makes financial sense for them (if anything MAXON is lead by some pretty astute business people). But here is the risk that MAXON may be missing because it involves human nature rather than profits or features: people don't like to feel trapped. They will put up with it but ultimately it hits a tipping point if they have had enough of paying more for the MSA than what they feel the upgrades are worth (this is especially true of Studio owners). Now we have been in this situation since R14 and have heard a slew of promises about the new core but really not seeing those promises fulfilled. Plus the more you rely on plugins or other programs to fill in the gaps of C4D, the less dependent you become on C4D upgrades. So what may happen is that there could be a growing and hidden sentiment of users finally saying "enough" should MAXON put forth yet another weak release. They will be vocal, angry and in-turn cause others on-the-fence about upgrading to opt out as well. As the choir of angry voices grow, then the movement to opt out gains momentum. It will come unannounced and happen all at once. Think how Brexit caught the U.K. political elite by surprise.....same forces at work. It's just basic human nature: fundamentally, we don't like to be held captive and when they rebel, it happens all at once. So apart from improving C4D at a faster pace (which probably won't happen because it just takes time to make stable software), they need to give us a reason to be patient. They need to be more open about communicating what future updates may contain. They don't even need to peg a future feature to a future release. The Bodypaint beta shows a softening on this, but that was after a decade of complaints. Honestly, in today's culture that level of patience is going away so MAXON has to become more open on all areas of the program because once people leave, chances are they are not coming back. Dave