Best 3D Authoring Software

[citco]

3ds Max is swell!
cinema 4d rocks!
maya? lightwave?

for all actively involved multimedia developers, you must agree, it is hard to settle on one type of 3d software. I give my marks to 3ds max! i like maya too but you gotta pick one! what's it gonna be and why?

[galaxyAbstractor]

I gonna choose maya since it's really great! Easy to use, much features, you can do anything you want. There is over 100 different menues lol.

It's easy to learn too, if you got it as a course in school, you'll learn it in 3 - 4 lessons

[diabolo]

I would say blender since its free and good to start with for beginners

[naerey]

BLENDER

holds the power!! :D

Seriously, over the last 2 years they have done great improvements, especially thanks to the Open Movie projects and the Open Game that is being done now... It's pretty much commercial-comparative (as in.. you can truly compare it to commercial software like maya and 3dsmax)...

www.blender.org

It has everything built in it. You can do a whole movie using just that... except maybe for a few things :P
It even has sound tools!! And composition!

It's free. Open Source. Cross Platform. Has great Support. Lots of Reference and great Community.

[Noodles8]

Whats the criteria? What are we basing this off of? Just random anything??

I'll go with Maya, but they all have their ups and downs. Maya might have a bit of a learning curve, but really its just getting use to their menu system. You do that and as long as you have a basic understanding of modeling, skiing, rigging, etc. Maya just rocks!