Hi Marco,

there is no doubt that 3DCoat is a very nice and affordable app. I only wanted to point out things where i did not agree with Chipp. :-)

I'm a hobby user at home and must do professional work (with MoI) at my work place. I own licenses for both apps ZBrush and 3DCoat(Edu). In the past i used 3DCoat and i like it's (PBR) texture painting capabilities very much. Same goes for the "image to mesh" feature. However after purchasing ZBrush i no longer have a need for 3DCoat, except for those two features. While i'm still a beginner with ZBrush i personally find the UI workflow very well thought out and i'm always surprised when i discover new features in ZBrush and how well and cleverly those features are thought out.

That said, if a user would like to start, for example, with ZBrushCore or 3DCoat Edu, i would however recommend 3DCoat Edu, because you get more features for the buck.

Another thing i like to point out about ZBrush, is the use of-plug-in's. There are a lot of useful and free plug-in's available.

Regarding render engines for ZBrush, there is the modern and popular (and fast and easy to use) KeyShot renderer available, which only costs 400 USD for the Pro Version and 200 USD for the Standard version. O.k. you have to buy the KeyShot Bridge too and it works only with ZBrush, but compare that with the regular price of KeyShot...

Best regards
Stefan