Quote - As for choosing that app, that is a topic of great debate :) I use Blender, a free open source package that does it all, and I love it to the core.

Anywayz good luck , and welcome to a new world!

I use blender a little but mainly use 3ds Max as that's what work have. Blender is a superb package, at the right price and punk's work is a good example of what can be achieved with it. It can genuinely do pro level output. I started 3d as a hobby many moons ago with POVRay, no UI at all just used a text editor to define a scene in POVRays language and then let it render away, what a sense of achievement I had producing my first animation ( a pretty bad fly through of a canyon).

Anyway I think 'punk is bang on all round, grab a copy of blender, sit down, and play (it'll take a while to get used to the UI), don't give up and visit regularly to let us see your stuff and get advice  - some of the people here are incredible talents and not afraid to share their knowledge.

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