I would suggest not worrying about which one is best. Try something free or a free trial and just get used to it. Most of the 3D modeling programs have very similar tools. The main difference is the interface.

I for one like the interface of 3DS Max, but a friend I know prefers Maya because he is more familiar with it and is more comfortable in making plug-ins for it, well at least for animations anyways.

For 3D modeling I prefer Modo because of it's rendering power as a stand-alone program and has great control when modeling mid to high poly models while doing it fast. Yet it can't do any animations.

There isn't much of a difference between Mudbox and Zbrush for 3D sculpting, it's more of a matter of preference on which you would choose to use based on the interface and extras, they both produce nice high poly models, normal maps, and displacement maps.

So before wondering which is better I would suggest seeing if 3D modeling is something your truly interested in and can manage. The program won't make you a better artist it's simply a tool similar to a paintbrush and canvas.


So learn if you want to really do it. Get the hang of modeling than I would suggest doing research to find out which program is better for what your doing. Maybe my the time to get the basics down the answer may be more obvious. Here I think you will get mixed answers because people live in different areas and have different preferences. And to answer your question about how it does with programming. Both 3DS and Maya are pretty flexible and they both and export obj. file types so based on the game engine it's going into it either doesn't matter which to use or it's not easy to answer because each game engine runs using different file types. I do know that Maya works pretty well with Python scripting I believe for plug-ins.

Also if your good enough in modeling many companies don't care which one you use since it can be exported into a different type. Some studios may tell you to use a certain program, but that shouldn't be a problem since it shouldn't take long to get used to the macros and short-keys and interface of a new one, especially since the interfaces are pretty good on being customizable.

In the film industry however I do know that Maya or In-house software are the main programs in comparison to 3DS since Maya has better animation tools.

30 days free trial(?) is not nearly enough to get familiar with complicated modelling programs if you havent done any 3d-modelling before. And after that, you need some serious cash to get 3ds max or maya (more so if you aren't a student). That is why I recommend that you get yourself a nice free program.

Blender is very good and very powerful, and totally free, though user interface is a bit tricky. I personally like to use XSI Mod Tool for my own projects. It is free version of Softimages XSI for non-commercial developing, very professional and quite easy to use.

I'm a devotee of Blender, especially with their latest version supporting tangent-space normal map generation. I really haven't run into anything so far that I need one of the expensive packages to perform, Blender (while having a somewhat hidden learning curve) is more than capable.

All they need to do is add n-gon support and the workflow will be that much faster...*sigh*