3ds Max, Maya, or something else?

[NadaWhileZ]

I am a part of the Griffins 1884 robotics team, and we have always used 3ds Max for our animations. Recently, we have wondered if it would be better to switch to Maya (we have access to both). Is there any true advantage of one over the other? I have heard that Max is more suited for games and architechture, and Maya for film, but we are still not sure if it would be worth the switch.

What have been your personal experiences with the programs, and if you have used both, are there any advantages that would benefit in the making of the animation?

[Eagleeyedan]

I have been thinking the same thing so I got Maya recently. To my shame, I haven't learned it yet so at least for this year, we are sticking with 3DS MAX.

[scottydoh]

Maya is a NURBS modeler so its definitely better for modeling organic shapes (characters and such) It also uses node graphs, so it operates similarly to grasshopper or other parametric programs.

EDIT: just to add my personal experiences, I use 3DS Max for its rendering features on a fairly regular basis, and I've explored modeling in Maya. Not to sound arrogant, but I'm fairly good with CAD software, almost completely self taught and pick things up pretty quickly. I had a lot of trouble understanding Maya, it has a very steep learning curve, but if you have the time to learn it the right way, I would assume it has a much better final product. Although, I think for the purposes of the safety animation and the like, 3DS Max is good enough.