Best 3D Software for Particles, Fluids, Dynamics, Materials, and Rendering?

[thebombman53]

I'm interested in:
- Richness of features
- Speed/ease of use

What I know:
- Maya -- Longtime industry standard, but feature-rich and harder to use/less productive.
- Modo -- Excellent modeling tools, though I don't know much else.
- Cinema 4d -- Reasonably priced, easy to use, full-package 3D product, though I'm assuming this comes at the cost of some more advanced features (like those in the topic of this discussion)?
- Blender -- Free and well-rounded, but hard to use and lacking in some of the areas of this discussion.
- 3ds Max -- I actually don't know how its strengths compare to the others in this aricle (if you care to inform me, please do).

Some background:
- I already know how to model/work in 3D, and have been dabbling in it for a few years at least.
- I've dabbled with most of the software on this list, but not extensively.
- I'm primarily interested in creating beautiful stills, and leveraging the powers that animations/physics/particles can give me for this (kind of like a 3d "photographer").
- At this point, I am willing to invest $ into these products, so that isn't really an issue.

Any & all thoughts are appreciated! Thanks much.

 

[Davros]

Autodesk 3ds max and softimage have a Free student/learning edition
3ds max is sort of maya but for games so it could be easier to use plus it comes with Mental Ray.

Povray is also free

 

[thebombman53]

Do you know anything about Lightwave? Is it good for this kind of work?

Also, what do you mean when you say:

3ds max is sort of maya but for games

?

 

[sebbbi]

Pros tend to use different programs for different things. Pretty much all the common options for mesh modeling and animation have been already mentioned. A sculpting program is also good to have. These give better results for organic modeling. Some options: zbrush, 3d coat and mudbox.

If you are doing movies or stills, you also need a production renderer and post process software. I don't know much about these, since in the games industry we feed the models and animations to our internal engines.

 

[Davros]

I mean it has similar features but is more aimed at game creation rather than movie production
all autodesk products have a free learning edition download them and see what you prefer