What to buy?

3D Studio Max?

That is next on my "To Buy" list, and I get the educational discount since I'm a college student, and can pick it up for about $900....but I think Lightwave 6.5 is only about $800.

But the thing is, I want to do some pretty heavy animations, and am wondering which one would be the better choice

consider a ram upgrade in there somewhere. Some people have told me that lightwave is one of the simplest to learn.

Define "heavy" animations for me. Character, special effects, architectural, what?

Chris

Well I went with 3D Studio Max.......I know it was more expensive, but I've seen the things that were done with it, like in the movie "Driven", I thought that was pretty amazing.

I meant highly detailed, professional......LONG.....as in 20 minutes+.

Besides, I got an amazing deal through JourneyEd

Gotcha. IMO you really could've gone with either one, I'm actually a bit more of a LightWave fan myself. They're both quality packages tho, and I actually just read about the work in Driven yesterday, nice stuff.

There's some more tutorials listed on 3Dluvr.com BTW, don't know if they're the same ones as on the max.3Dluvr site or not:
http://www.3dluvr.com/content/artz/maxfirst.php

Chris

Wow you can get lightwave that cheap? The official site sais it costs 2495 $ *slick*

If you are a student, you can get software through JourneyEd.....check it out at http://www.journeyed.com

Huge discounts.....I picked up MS Office Pro. for $195 two years ago.