I have used all three, and all three will produce results far above my
abilities. IMHO it boils down to preference. I like 3DMax best and that is
what I use for myself. But clearly, these are all top-notch products
capable of very professional results. But if price is a big factor, then I
think LightWave will be your weapon of choice. I also use a low end program
called Bryce and get some pretty impressive results for what it is. For
under $200, it is handy to have, but it has very limited shaping tools, and
often you have to create and import.

Have Fun!
Regards,
--Vern

I am entering semi-retirement, and am developing an app base of programs to service web clients from my home office environment, based on DreamWeaver and Flash. I have a totally tricked out Windows XP Pro puter, NVidia Ti 4600 graphics card, and 2 gigs of RAM. Looking for the best 3D Animation Modeler to invest in to feed Flash for e-manual demos. Think of a mouse controlled rotating cell phone, built CAD style of individual components. Click, and the cover opens. Click on the face and a new animated feature set is displayed for point and click operational info. In depth research has only confused me. Confused between Maya, 3D Max and LightWave. Will invest up to 2 K for this purpose. Thank you. (I have put a referring URL link in here to Motorola's e-manuals as a good target type.)



Referring URLs
http://commerce.motorola.com/consumer/QWhtml/manual.html

Having used all 3 as well, I agree with everything Vern said.

3Dsmax is possibly the easiest to learn. Maya is a little more complete(no pun intended) out of the box, and LightWave has some awesome lighting effects(again, no pun intended :)

The 3D world is very huge and consuming, capable of things you will never(well, there's always exceptions to "never") need in web content. I would strongly suggest you try out all three, then go from there.

Good luck!
cheers

-beally-
-------------------------
"Senior Member" - experienced at messing things up

You might want to check out Discreet Plasma, built by the 3DS folks and intended for Web audiences. It is the most advanced Flash-capable 3D product I have seen. Of course, there are always plug-ins to 3DS or Lightwave if you are already familiar with those apps.

I have had the best experience using the vector outputs in Maya, which
render directly to SWF.

Rex

[quoted text, click to view]
intended for Web audiences. It is the most advanced Flash-capable 3D
product I have seen. Of course, there are always plug-ins to 3DS or
Lightwave if you are already familiar with those apps.
[quoted text, click to view]