The Max verses Maya verses Lightwave versus XSi (softimage) argument is one I've seen go round and round. I use Max and love it, Maya somehow feels more robust then Max, but the daddy of then all is the full blown XSi, costs over 10k though. Max plus character studio I think beats Maya, but in truth it's personal preference. Many studios use a mix of these packages, others have a decree to use a certain product, but there's not much in it.

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.