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SketchUp

is 3ds max considered as a freeware ?

hahaha

1)a, 2)b

Yarr! :p

Cyberian: depends on your money.

my suggestions:

zero budget: wings3d (great usability for opensource!), blender (powerful, but sick interface), gimp (prepare to cry a lot!),
small budget: nevercenter silo (kickass, only 109$), photoshop elements (well, terrible stripdown, but only 99$)
best value: softimage xsi foundation (major professional app, everything you need for realtime 3d (modelling, animation etc) only 449$), used photoshop from ebay (with anything from 5.5 upwards you'll be satisfied ~200$), mudbox home for sculpting normalmaps (299$)
you may think about zbrush for texturing as well (~450$)

stay away from max, tho it is somewhat still an industry-standard, its _way_ too much "patchwork" in that app to enjoy it while learning.. plus expensive as hell ..

cheers!

nytrik: yes apparently maya is freeware too so i heard? :)

actually i'm impressed with the maya fully working learner version with learner dvd's completely functional just leaves a watermak in the final render :l

1) a and b
2) a b and c

and gizmo, what do you mean by patchwork?

Gizmo: thanks a lot!

noouch: the interoperability within the build-in tools as well as and especially with the needed plugins. 3d max features a hell a lot of functions and tools to achieve any wanted result IF you know how to operate each and every function. there are a lot of dependencies and even more "you just have to know how this is working underneath"-paradigms plus there is no "if you know how tool A works you can almost guess how tool B is working" (like in the nextgeneration applications such as modo, xsi or silo..) if you grew up with the program you wont notice of course, since its always been that way ;)

so, with "patchwork" i meant that 3dmax is a giant collection of more or less good intergrated tools, functions and plugins where you really have to know what you are doing. beginner-mistakes are usually punished the hard way (back to start my dear).

and since it is so nineties to learn 3d the hard way, you 're better off with a modern-day-tool, simple, eh? :)

lightwave is pretty nice for modelling and stuff, it seems a lot simpler than max+maya (helped by having two programs, one for modelling and one for the rest).
skinning is a bitch tho (hindered by having one program for setting up the skin and one for the rest :) ).

1b and 2b for me, not that i get any of either lately...

I like wings and lightwave for modelling - lightwave is probably better if you get an older version for basic stuff, there's less crap you don't need. Maya is good for more advanced stuff. Max.. urgh. Well, I've not used it for many years, but that was my first and last impression. Only used softimage way way back a little, it was great, but took a lot of learning. No idea what it's like now.

1a 2b

smash: like lightwave? try modo ;)
also, anyone here tried houdini? saw it in action a while ago and it really reminded me of WZ.

free 3d modelling package http://www.k-3d.org/ - installed it a few days ago, but havent tried it yet :D but as for the screenshots, the interface beats blender ;)

i have to second noouch. modo really is the next-gen-lighwave. quite expensive tho if you compare it with xsi-foundation..
and yes, houdini is based on the same principles as WZ - just not in realtime ;)

there should be an option "at the office when i should be working" (or maybe someone said that already,i didn't read all the posts)

Ok, so which is most intuitive? I have a wacom and the idea of sculpting appeals a lot more to me than innumerable options that just leaves me baffled. I've tried zbrush but the interface just makes me want to break down and cry.

Perhaps I should start by staying the hell away from 3d, but still...

if you hate zbrush's interface but like the idea, mudbox is probably the way to go.

yeh, mudbox is EXCELLENT, the no-nonsense interface seriously beats zbrush by a mile (you can use it without reading the manual for instance.. tho, you have to try the buttons for viewportmovement a bit :P). however the trade-off is that mudbox aint capable doing sophisticated things that zbrush can.

oh and if you want to have a 'freeware' version of 3dsmax, try gmax.. it's some stripped down experiment for kiddies who like to do gamemods. It can do most the shit you need for demos, tho, there was an issue tho.. forgot what it was, but iirc it did export .3ds :D

gmax aint supported anymore, but it's based on max6 iirc and it should be still avail if you really google for it..

does it support greeble and baking AO-maps? ;)

you can bake AO with nvidia's dev tools.. and iirc it did support plugins and even maxscript

Maali: what dev-tools would that be?

nvidia melody?