Mike,

The new ZBrush 4 lets you send your ZBrush model to be physically created to your requirements(you have to pay for it) and then your physically manufactured model ships to the address you specify. That's definitely voxel manufacturing. (At least, I think it is. Maybe it's converted?)

I do appreciate you taking the time to write about d-subs, voxels, and nurbs. I have found it easier to create organic with polygons before, though I am most curious if patch creation to polygon conversion will produce better end results in less time. Nurbs do seem to rock with man made things.

Michael,

Thank you for taking the time to explain all that. Makes sense, maybe it's the same reason why a single person is so much harder to draw than detailed architecture. I definitely see MoI as awesome for man made objects. I want to create people also, so I think I'll be trying patch soon. (And nurbs from moi are converted to polygons on export, right? So, I could bring nurbs and patches to the same environment for lighting and such because they'd all be polygons at that point, right?)

This leads me to another question. What are the limitations on the student version?

(apologizes for the rabbit trail - I do support a collada format in ver3... just to keep it on track.. lol)