shahedC

I had purchased AM twice in the past, and the last time was Animation Master 2000, v8.5 I had taken up animation as a hobby, and completed all the examples in the book. Fast-forward to 2009: I would like to get back into animation and character modeling, and was looking at the following free products: * Blender: best free product, but difficult to use * Alice: fun, but more for kids * POV-Ray: nice, but not as intuitive as AM * 3D Studio Max: too expensive... * Maya: ... likewise But I still love AM, am would consider getting an upgrade: * the Hash website has an unversioned product (posted 2007?) for $299 * SafeHarbor (sharbor.com) has v15 for $219 (reduced from $299) * Wikipedia claims that v15 (2008) is the latest version * ... wait a second, sharbor.com no longer has this listing, and it only appears in Google's cached search results A few questions: 1. Is it worth it for a beginner to upgrade to v15, or should I just stick to v8.5 for now? 2. If I buy the latest version, which is the best place to buy it from? 3. If I buy it from hash.com, will I get a discount? ~shahedc .