I got a full, free version of Cinema 4D SE v5.2 to learn basics on, and I use it for all my models. If you contact Maxon they might be kind enough to tell you where to get it (I got mine on CD). It's pretty good to learn on and it's unbelievably easy to use, which is just as well as the PDF manual is a bunch of arse. I even got my e-mails answered by support in a couple of hours, which is better service than I get for all my purchased s/w! I've got Maya, LW7 and Cinema4D v7 trials too. And I use the word "trials" advisedly for the first two. Maya has a watermark in the modelling screen and on renders that is so intrusive it's effectively unusable. Forget it. LW7 demo doesn't allow you to create any object with more than 200 vertices! So you can model a cube, or a cube perhaps. Oh - to be fair, you could also model a cube. No good for learning whatsoever, so I don't know why they bothered sending a demo version out. TBH, when (if) I get enough money together, I'll probably go for 3dsMax, if only because it seems to be used more widely than anything else. Or maybe it's because it's the only one I've never used! Seriously, though, after reading many reviews I think Max would be the best bet if you're not going to be spending more than 3K, although I believe Cinema4D 7 has the fastest and the best renderer of them all (it is damn fast!)