The traditional 3D software Cinema 4D has released a… “free, fully functional, Student Edition of Cinema 4D”. Specifically, the new version 14. Which potentially saves you about $1,000.
Nice, but it’s actually not quite fully functional. There’s no plugin support in the student version (so presumably Poser Pro 2014 users won’t be able to use their official PoserFusion Poser-CD4 bridge plugin with it), and nor is there networked rendering. Oh, and the software expires after 18 months.
Still, if you were thinking of testing it then the student edition might be an option. The results can look rather pretty. Here’s Fredy3D’s “The Defenders of Bast Prime” from his New Egypt sci-fi series…
Fredy’s pipeline between Poser and Cinema 4D is actually via the $75 commercial plugin InterPoser, rather than PoserFusion.