I have Max, Maya, and C4d at the moment, after 6 months of onwership, Maya still baffles me, but that may be a) because I've spent nowhere near enough time using it or b) because I've been using Max for five years +. C4D I found hard work at first but once I RTFM and spent some time with it I actually rather like it - I may even side grade to 9.5 from my current version of Max (3.1) as my max has fallen off the 'upgrade spectrum'. Cost would be about 400 for C4D 9.5 or 3000 for Max 8, I'm leaning towards C4D at the moment, but I want to spend some time with XSI too before I decide.

----------

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