3dsmax is mainly used for games, and maya is used for movies. I'll agree with those two things.

However, Lightwave is NOT underdog, it's the by far most established industry, even though it's not the most commonly used one. LW has been around for a lot longer than 3dsmax, and it really shows off. It provides the users with the most predictable results by far, which is essential if you actually want to get something "useful" done.

Personally, I have experience with all three of these programs, and I'd pick LW over the others at any day. MAX is still better for "newbies", considering it can produce nice, yet somewhat useless work in a very short amount of time.

MAYA has lots of features, but the problem with it is that it lacks a perfect renderer. No matter how much you look or how hard you try, you can never get a "realistic" result, even though it can be really, really good. LW has the best renderer, and even though moviemaking with it takes longer, it can provide the authors with a better result.

Houdini was an amazingly complex program back in the day it was used, and it could really do some amazing things. However, it never became as popular as the other programs due to its ridicules price and somewhat lacking renderer. Plugins didn't really make anything simpler.

Softimage is an excellent tool for grass, hair and realistic plants, but it can also be used for moviemaking with a fairly good result. Just look at Shrek and judge the program for yourselves.

Of course, even thought LW gives the most predictable result and is an amazingly powerful modeling package, it has one major downside: The community isn't too helpful, since all "good" users already have a well-paid job with no time to help newbies. Of course, if you want less predictable results and a much, much harder competition level, feel free to go with 3ds or Maya, but don't blame me if you never got the jobs you wanted.

By the way, here is an excellent article about LW's usability:
http://www.lightwave3d.com/profiles/TimeMagazine/

i never said lightwave isnt the best, i just said its not used as much as the others, which is true, and 3ds max is not for newbies......i always here them complaining about it, bryce 5 and cinema 4d xl are the noob renderers, cinema is pretty good, bryce is just sad though. it does everything for you, and its very simple. you can do advanced things, but its difficult, and you get nowhere near the great results you do in other programs, 3ds max and lightwave are my favs.

My definition of a "noob rendering program" would be set by Terragen.

I do not know which i would pick simply because i dont have 10K to go out and buy each one, personally i woudnt spend 1.5k on anything for a computer, unless its the computer itself.

4 months too late :(

We had the same discussion on SL's forums.

And please, don't bump threads 4 months old.