Freshgrease

Student discounts are awesome, but I am graduating soon. I've been doing 3D work for years now, but I've always used Blender 3D. I want to get a decent professional package that'll let me do fluid, NURBS, fur(hair , grass, etc), cloth, and physics. As a student, I can get either get 3DS Max 9 with Combustion and Cleaner OR Maya Unlimited (with ncloth, fur, and the other features that make it the ultimate version) 2008 (recently released) with the same packages plus Motionbuilder (animates characters, walk cycles, etc).

They are both $389 each, and I have been playing with Maya PLE for awhile. I kinda like the customization and tools. I am curious to see what opinions members here think. 3DS Max 9 regularly over $3k plus more $$$ for the plugins to emulate Maya's unlimited stuff. Maya Unlimited ~$6.5k. I better get it now while I still can.

Cinema 4D R10 with Body Paint 3d is $200, and all licenses are non-expiring.

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Linked

Get Maya, I would say 3ds but if you have experience then you should be able to utilize Maya. I have both and while 3ds is a lot easier to use, it can get annoying when you have to certain effects, which Maya already has set up in the basic menu.

OG

Maya is the way to go so get that <.<

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Freshgrease

I've given myself some time to research. I am actually in the process of building a quad-core Xeon server to render with a standalone Mental Ray for Maya. From what I've heard, when rendering to file, you use the CPU alot. When working within Maya you use the graphics card for real-time renders. I'll make a decision before June as I will be purchasing one or the other.

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