Best 3D software for the price

[droidonthemoon]

As a motion graphics artist, I'm finding it necessary to delve into 3D, but I have always put this off. I have just stuck with 2D stuff. Now, considering I will probably want to incorporate this into some special effects stuff later, which software should I go with. I have heard Maya 2011, 3DS Max and Cinema 4D are all good. Vast price differences though and tons of packages that have different applications. Which is the best for (mostly) general work and some special effects work. Photo realism is usually the look my clients like, not so cartoony.
Thoughts?

[nico89-fx]

Well.. going from zero to photorealistic won't be an easy feat, no matter the software.
Those you mentioned are all great, even C4D which is by far the cheapest of the lot.
So it's all a matter of preference. For instance, Max and Maya (both by Autodesk right now) have completely different user interfaces and pretty different workflows on several aspects, but the main concepts (modelling and such) remain unchanged throughout every 3d package out there, even blender, as they are non-application dependant.
Since it's all a matter of preference for you at this point, you should check wether you are gonna wanna purchase a product specific plugin for instance, (after all you are gonna want to keep your application, it's gonna cost you some big bucks) or wether you like Maya's interface over Max's (which I admit can be quite counter-intuitive at first glance)
But then again, they all have trial versions for you to get a little bit of a feel for them.
I'd go with Max again if I had to choose, but that's just my two cents.

[Nobber]

Best 3D Software for the price? Has to be Blender, surely? Especially if you're starting from scratch and wary of making a large investment.

www.Blender.org

[Andrew_DeLong]

Agreed. Blender is best for the price (it's practically *free* )

Here's a small sample of what Blender (and a few other programs by the same people) is capable of: