blender is in a class all of it’s own. watch and see.
I started with MAX 2.5 many years ago. And i became pretty good with it. but then i got stucked with MAX. i didnt learn new stuff, all my work started to look the same. I think MAX have too much parameters, too much primitives, too much things to click, too much everything. i was bored of all 3D for few years, until january 03 when i found Blender.
Things that lead me to blender was that it is available for mac and pc, and maybe the price had something to do with it also :D. I use mac at work and pc at home so it started to sound promising. I made it a personal challenge to learn blender. after a month i was able to do things i had never done before in MAX.
Now i have intensively followed the evolution of blender. Every day i must check if there any new CVS, new art at elysiun or blender3d.org. i´m learning every week something new about 3D. I am addicted to 3D again thanks to this über kool program called Blender 3D!
The only reason I am trying to learn more 3d apps is because I want to be experienced in using them if I ever get hired by someone who wants me to use a specific app. Other wise, it would be Blender all the way.
Lol, I tried Maya (Personal learning edition) recently and choked on it. Like so many other people here, I’m hooked on Blender.
now this thread is sounding something like an infomercial. 
I am happy with Blender for the price I paid. 
But as for any projects i do for clients, I will continue to do with Cinema 4d. I feel the exact opposite that most here seem to feel about “natural” or “intuitive” controls.
Contrary to popular belief, editing in other apps can be just as easy, the key shortcuts are just different. Not to mention that the modeling tools in other apps allow for some things that blender makes to difficult. (IMHO)
I am new to the blender community, but a lot of times the forums on blender sites seem to be one big pep rally, or fight. The fights usually break out because someone had the nerve to add extra functionality to blender. The pep rallys are usually started by people who have never and will never work a day in the design industry. I know that there are exceptions to this, but it does not change how annoying it is to see this stuff over and over again.
I for one would like us to get into more discusions about how to use blender, what could make blender more functional for someone in the design industry, how to improve the workflow, etc…etc…etc…
Not just sit around and say "blenders the best, dont chage it! blenders the best, dont chage it! blenders the best, dont chage it! blenders the best, dont chage it! , all day long.
Just my 2 cents as a new guy here.
but wait,…!!! mike!!! there’s more!!! you get this all at one unbelievably low price!!! yes,…all this is yours for,…not $7000,…not $1000,…but FREE!!! that’s right mike!!! i said free!!! can you believe it??? mike!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT, MIKE???,…! :o :o :o
Is that the impersonation of the the guy who works for Microsot and there is a tape of him selling windows 3.1 a decade ago
could be, the guy i was thinking of has done about a million infomercials. probably the guy. kind of similar to the jock with the pony tail who sells the skiing machines too.
Is that the impersonation of the the guy who works for Microsot and there is a tape of him selling windows 3.1 a decade ago[/quote]
hahaha! Good one. Made me laugh. 
I tried Alias Studio PLE the other day. Terrible interface, incredibly inconsistent. Click heavy too, which made it even worse.
its true maya is more click work but with maya you can also do more than with blender.
you cannot compare a light weight tool with a heavy tool but expect the same easy workflow because in maya is more you have to click more.
often blenders limitation prevented me to finish a project the way i need
it to, so i do most work in maya and play around in blender.
in blender i do light weight jobs which just go faster there!
but for heavy duty work maya is the choice.
and also blender has some very unlogical and finger hurting key short cuts.
Looks like one of the big guns are taking notice of Blender 
You can download a 30 day trial of SoftImage XSI and one of the questions when registering is what animation software you currently use and Blender is in the list. No more typing Blender in the ‘Others’ box.
Yay [!] [!] 
I agree, ie I needed a simple rope for a projects, one that was animatable, and everything went smooth and fast up to that point. I was forced to compromise and didn’t use “ropes” at all. Maya is indeed a great utility, but I do wish blender would fill in the holes, hopefully 2.37 will fill a few.
With softbodies in 2.37 alot of those holes will be filled. It will now be easy to anime a tablecloth being blown away from the table And other cool stuff.
Personally the first time in Blender I found differrent buttons each time I looked at the same space. So learning Blender is not easy. But it does make me want to discover, to explore and to learn it.
I cannot and will not drag other programs down because I have not tried them. I tried Wings3D and it was pretty easy to mess around with.
My 2 cents
Is that the impersonation of the the guy who works for Microsot and there is a tape of him selling windows 3.1 a decade ago[/quote]
No, that’s Steve Balmer, current CEO of Microsoft.
The whole “spazzing on infomercials” thing is pretty generic though. So generic that the Blender community has had no trouble picking up on it…
That’s it! Next Blender DVD should feature a community-built infomercial 
Is that the impersonation of the the guy who works for Microsot and there is a tape of him selling windows 3.1 a decade ago[/quote]
No, that’s Steve Balmer, current CEO of Microsoft.[/quote]
Oh, I thought he meant the late Mike Levy of “Amazing Discoveries”.
Lol, that could sound like any number of salespeople!
Edit:
No offense to any salespeople here. 
Heh, heh… I actually started on 3D Studio for DOS v. 1.0 way back. (Couldn’t talk the boss-man into any upgrades since then, so had to search for a “cheaper” alternative. Couldn’t get the old beast to run anymore on an NT-based OS 
) Happened on Moray (with its little animation plugin) and thot that was cool. Knew about Blender, but it needed a raytracer back then. Now it does, and I’m pretty content to poke around with it some. Don’t get as much time in it as I’d like.
I somewhat agree with rwebbart here. I use SolidWorks at work and there’s a lot that can be done quickly that, while possible in Blender, is much more difficult. I know, its not designed for that type of work… but SW’s interface - more M$-windows-standard-ish - gets the job done effectively. Its all about learning an app’s idiosyncracies: some have more than others for different users.
You don’t like Maddox Dittohead?
I agree that Blender is the weapon of choice. I took a few Max classes in school, and while I found it entertaining and did learn, I seem to pick things up quicker with Blender. Plus, it’s free, and you can’t beat that. Well, unless they paid you to use it, but yeah.