I love blender and all but i want to learn what the professionals use because i know this is what i want to do for a job. So what is better 3ds max or maya.
If it helps i would be into creating games.
i think 3d studio max is more for gaming were as maya is more for high end film production etc. but i would recommend that you download the free editions first and try them out first to see which one you feel more comfortable with.
Yeah, GMax is the free edition for 3DsMax and Maya PLE is Maya’s.
It would be a good idea to start using 3DsMax, as Maya is going to slowly fade away, but not for a while.
And there are other software, like XSI.
why is maya fading away
Most likely Max and Maya will fuse into a single application in the near future, so it doesn’t care that much wich one you start learning first.
i dont like the gui in max it takes lots of learning (more than blender).
cant comment on maya yet or xsi.
you left out lightwave. i dont mind it except for the fact that the modeller and animator are seperate programs
i swear to god wasnt there a thread JUST LIKE THIS, oh wait that was lightwave nevermind.
Gmax sucks d*ck when it comes to free trial software since its like a watered down version of 3ds Max what is it 3?!, not including the 30 day trial. And the PLE is basically a full version of Maya just with a watermark in your renders, and in the realtime window, and you can work with it as long as you want.
3ds Max is used more frequently in the game industry, but there both the same damn thing.
http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/
and personally i don’t think maya and 3ds with fuse or maya will fade away, they are both way too huge in seperate industries. Think about if pepsi and cocacola joined together, ofcourse they wouldn’t just drop one of their products, they are competitors ultimatly making a bigger profit selling them both.
I think 3dsmax, is damn ugly. However, it is the more popular 3d app (don’t flame me, it is) Say you get a 3d gaming job. Your boss would be more interested in your Max knowledge than your Maya knowledge.
I would say go with 3ds Max. Or possibly softimage. Ever since Half Life 2 came out, there has been quite some interest in using softimage, (Google Half Life 2 XSI EXP or something like that, it’s and educational version of softimage)
Looking at behind the secenes specials of game development 3dMAX or 3d Studio are always there as for film I use Cinema4D occasionly 
I’m sorry, but there are enough of these threads here.
Please use the search function.
Thanks.
BgDM