I guess its a matter of opinion. If you ask a Maya user he or she will say that Maya is the best. The same goes for Max. If its a matter of render quality Both Maya and Max have Mental Ray Built in which is the best renderer out right now in my opinion. I am a Maya user and ive tried Max too and i personally think maya is a little more straight forward and easier to use but that could be just because ive been using it for a lot longer lol. Also I have been using auto CAD for about 5 years and it works pretty good with maya too. Solids seem to come out as curves though but the workaround to that is just export your model from Auto CAD as a 3d studio file and import it into maya and it will convert it into a poly mesh which is easier to work with anyway. One main diffrence that ive found between the two programs it the texturing systems. I dont really like the way the material editor is set up in Max. Maya's Hypershade is much easier to pick up and has much more to offer when it comes to making complex shaders. AS modeling goes i think they are pretty much the same and have about the same exact tools, to my knowledge anyway. One other diffrence ive found is that Maya has a whole lot more tutorials out there than Max does so it may be a little easier to learn if you are willing to do the research to find them. All i can really say is try them both and make your own mind. Thats the best way to find out which one you like better. Good luck.

Message edited on: 06/02/2004 14:54