Pretty solid summary there nervouschimp. It's a shame Maya's price has been hiked up $500.
Here, I disagree strongly. In my experience -- and I really don't know Maya well -- Max has the best GUI of any major 3D package (and it was far from my first program, so it's not like I loved the first tool I learned), with one really annoying flaw: you create objects using the creation panel but modify them using the modify panel (why not just merge the two?). Once you get your head around this particular bizarreness, I really like Max.
Cinema 4D is a disaster -- it's actually both less capable and less usable than Blender in my opinion (I basically bought the top-rated C4D and Blender books on Amazon and tried to figure out both packages, and to my considerable surprise I found Blender more usable and powerful in pretty much every head-to-head comparison).
Blender is definitely one of the weirder 3d apps, but I don't think it's any weirder than XSI (which plenty of people swear by).
It seems to me the obvious contender you're ignoring is Lightwave. It's by far the cheapest of the full-featured options (even though you can no longer get a competitive upgrade for $500...) and has one of the best renderers and material systems. You do need to export to FBX, but plenty of people are successfully using it with Unity.
No, the worst GUI ever award goes to Max.
Here, I disagree strongly. In my experience -- and I really don't know Maya well -- Max has the best GUI of any major 3D package (and it was far from my first program, so it's not like I loved the first tool I learned), with one really annoying flaw: you create objects using the creation panel but modify them using the modify panel (why not just merge the two?). Once you get your head around this particular bizarreness, I really like Max.
Cinema 4D is a disaster -- it's actually both less capable and less usable than Blender in my opinion (I basically bought the top-rated C4D and Blender books on Amazon and tried to figure out both packages, and to my considerable surprise I found Blender more usable and powerful in pretty much every head-to-head comparison).
its hard for pros to adjust to all the blender weirdness
Blender is definitely one of the weirder 3d apps, but I don't think it's any weirder than XSI (which plenty of people swear by).
It seems to me the obvious contender you're ignoring is Lightwave. It's by far the cheapest of the full-featured options (even though you can no longer get a competitive upgrade for $500...) and has one of the best renderers and material systems. You do need to export to FBX, but plenty of people are successfully using it with Unity.