Which 3D rendering package do you reccomend? (Score 1)

What's the best 3D software is like asking what is the meaning of life. It's as touchy as PC vs Mac. There is no best solution, that's why most major studios use a combination of off the shelf software usually Maya, XSI and Houdini plus a lot of proprietary code/plug-in's what have you. If you are serious about 3D you should probably start with a fairly robust program such as Maya or XSI and then you won't have to re-learn stuff, but basically 3D is 3D the paradigms differ and each has it's strengths and weaknesses. Maya is a very good modeler (nurbs, sub division surfaces etc) it's modeler has gotten a bad rap for a long time, but in the right hands it is more than adequate and now there is a Mental ray plug in for free! and Maya is just around 2K, seems like a no brainer to me. Just seven years ago Power Animator the pre cursor to Maya was 45K and only ran on a UNIX workstation (50K) and it was only a 150mh machine. Maya has a lot of cool tools however there will not be parody between PC and Mac versions for at least a year, which means no fur, cloth or fluid dynamics, really no big deal (there is a great hair plug-in: Shave and a Haircut from Joe Alter. The latest release 3.0 of XSI will really give Maya a run for the money, although it is six grand or there a bouts, it is really a fine all around modeling and animation app and has great integration with Mental Ray. Houdini is strong on particle effects and is less strong in modeling, it is procedural in nature and things can be changed and all changes are the propagated downstream. This one is not an easy learn, not for the faint of heart. It remains to be seen if Max will survive when Maya is so feature rich and now is priced less than Max. They are really not in the same league anyway IMHO. Lightwave is used a lot for TV and some broadcast as well, it has a great renderer and powerful modeling tools as well. Cinema 4D is a first class renderer and has some very good plug-in's from Cebas software , it is very fast, and if animation is not really a concern it might be a good choice. As I said this is all very subjective, try a few on for size and see what works for you, that's the bottom line. No one product will do it all. Any ways "you can never have too many toys!" Most of all have fun! ps: you might want to spend some time hanging out at http://www.highend3d.com Cheers