I am into programming and 3d modelling and when I talk to professional 3d modellers they all think 3d Studio Max is a shitty modeller. I personally think it's easy and really good, I've been using it for 2 years.
The main reason it is rated so low by many pros is because it's bones, which are a structure of bones that can control objects, is really shit, but there are 100s of plugins some very expensive, some free that make up for these problems.
Here are all the 3d modelling programs I can think of:
3d Studio Max 1.2 / 2.5 / 3.0
RayDream Studio
Truespace
LightWave
Maya (Which is suppose to be one of tha best on tha market and tha most hardest to use and one of tha most expensive, mainly for character animation)
PowerAnimator
SoftImage
POVRay(Freeware, and it's a raycaster, but it uses a C-based language for modelling, I personally think it's stupid)
I know RayDream Studio is cheap in cost.
These are ratings of tha modellers from what I hear from tha pros.
1. Maya
2. PowerAnimator
3. Truespace or 3D Studio Max or Lightwave
4. RayDream Studio
I'm not sure about SoftImage
But in tha end it's up to you, you gotta go around to all tha modelling sites you can find and check out tha models and go to the actually modeling sites.
I really like 3D Studio Max, which I'm sticking to right now.
3D Studio Max - www.ktx.com
Truespace - www.caligari.com
You could find the other sites for all the other modellers pretty easy.
Oh ya, some modellers like Maya and PowerAnimator only work on special workstations. PowerAnimator I think needs an SGI workstation and I think Maya needs a NT Workstation.
RESEARCH!!!
Later man,
email - datisme@notme.com
Da_KiD