[Drew]

well obviously use textures from photoshop because First of all, how will they know ? and anyways your using a program to make textures for your 3d object. There is nothing against that because if there was you would have to use standard colors and arch materials. as for the whole issue on Maya, They dont want you to use anything else because they fund FIRST with 3ds max and always have so they cant ask to change. If you know maya or Lightwave, or SOFTIMAGE XSI or anything else, Great! Learn 3DS max to compete. I know that Maya joined up with Autodesk but they GUI and tools are all diffrent and Im sure that they just want to give everyone the same and equal chance at the animation this year just like every other year. Now granted, If you made an animation in Maya, how would they know? If it were autodesk products only does that mean that you cant use plugins like Afterburn, and Dreamscape? because those are made from Siti Sinati. I would just say, Do what you can and use 3ds max as much as possible. you will have less problems with equality as an issue.