Dude…this entire debate on which 3d program is the best is totally moronic. Its entirely based on personal preference and what programs you have used in the past/what you are used to and how well the interface works for you. Try them all out, theyre all decent, but the major players in this are 3dSMAX, Lightwave, and Maya. They all have their Strengths and Weaknesses and none can be claimed to be above the rest. Theyre all tools that one can use to reach one goal, its just the one that fits best in your hand. They are all extremely powerful and they have most of the capabilities of each other.
*Originally posted by Chris Nowak *
**Dude…this entire debate on which 3d program is the best is totally moronic. Its entirely based on personal preference and what programs you have used in the past/what you are used to and how well the interface works for you. Try them all out, theyre all decent, but the major players in this are 3dSMAX, Lightwave, and Maya. They all have their Strengths and Weaknesses and none can be claimed to be above the rest. Theyre all tools that one can use to reach one goal, its just the one that fits best in your hand. They are all extremely powerful and they have most of the capabilities of each other. **
Well said. I must input one thought though, Lightwave, in my opinion, is more for cameras and lighting, Max is more for low polygon count, and maya is for stunning complexity which makes comparing the three useless. In all three of these programs anything is possible.
Thought I’d post a link to our local colleges 16 week intensive course for animation. http://www.mmdclab.com/ They use Maya for their course. If you are interested in 3D animation I understand that this is a first rate course with a high rate of placement in the industry. Have fun
Ken
Ok. I think I have enough references now. I found a few other websites by searching and I found the following: www.3dlinks.com, www.3dcafe.com, www.raph.com/3dartists, and www.zoomorphix.com. Thanks for all of your help guys.
I personaly prefer Lightwave. The control panels are simply arranged MUCH better than MAX’s and I like Lightwave’s animater/renderer a bit more.
*Originally posted by MBiddy *
**Blizzard uses MAX for all the cinematics. **
That alone is good reason enough to use it!
i cant wait to learn max … it looks like such a flexible rpogram…
Well, I’ve finally completed some things. To see some of my work, although I’m still gradually getting better, go to www.turbosquid.com and search for Hailfire in the main screen. There, you’ll find some of the things that I’ve made. You can download them at your will since I made them free for download. Others, however, place a price on their work. Search around and you’ll be able to find lots of great examples.
I like your choice of subjects to model . You seem to have learned enough to exhaust the possibilites of simple-poly modeling… I’d strongly reccomend you do the MAX 5 tutorials starting on Pg. 47(you can skip this) and Pg. 221… Meshsmooth NURMS models are fun 
Yeah, I would but, one of the other team members has the 3dsmax5 tutorials. So unfortunately, I can’t look at the tutorials just yet.
*Originally posted by Suneet *
I like your choice of subjects to model
Well, what can I say? I love Star Wars. I’m currently working on the Blue Guard’s Rifle but I still need to look at some tutorials to figure out how to make it.
*Originally posted by Hailfire *
**Yeah, I would but, one of the other team members has the 3dsmax5 tutorials. So unfortunately, I can’t look at the tutorials just yet. **
Humn… Well, if you did a full installation of MAX, when you open MAX and go to Help>Tutorials… , you get a window showing all the tutorials in the book. The page numbers I mentioned are for “Modeling a Chess Set” and “Modeling a Low Polygon Character”
The others are good too…