knightly said:
Lightwave, Maya, carrara, animation:master, blender, cinema4d, combustion, POV, POV-Ray, Pixels3d, electric image
these are all available for mac OSX
<edit>oh yeah, and blender is free and has a maya like interface.</edit>
Right, Blender's got a good reputation. Quite a few in the industry use it, but I've never messed with it... it does have a fairly large community support group, too and has much to reccomend it.
But I can't recommend the others. While Maya's available on the Mac also, its future is in doubt since it's been bought by Discreet, makers of 3dsMax, plus I never had good results with it on the Mac platform. At the time, at least, I don't think it was fully cooked. Animation master's been around for a while, but no serious production has been done with it in a long while. Cinema4d's in the same boat. POV, POV-Ray are okay as ray tracers, and some people do decent stuff with it in regards to still images, but they are not complete 3d modelling & animation packages and are guaranteed to drive you either insane or into a bearded fat guy sitting at a computer all day long like that nerd character on the Simpsons. Pixels3d & electric image are below the radar and probably won't be around much longer, or will eke out a miserable existence like Animation master.
Believe me, if you're a small production company about to pick a 3D package, pick one of the big 3 - Lightwave, Maya, or Max. Why?
First, because you don't want to have to be making custom shaders, scripting, or plugins. That's very advanced stuff. You want something that a small number of people - or one person - can use to generate results (with talent, of course). You don't want something that requires a big team to support. These packages come pretty much ready to play - modeling, animation, rendering, etc.
Second, you'll find the most number of professional users online of those three, and be able to get the best community support. (Like everything else these days, don't expect to get any support from the manufacturers themselves). The others have smaller pro communities, with the exception possibly of Blender... (which is being adopted in some of the larger studios because its software is open source. Great for big studios, not so great for the small indie guy).
Thirdly, if you need to or anticipate needing affordable labor, pick one of big three. In that category, Max is on top, because you can throw a stick and find people using it these days. Maya's a close second. LW's got the smallest labor pool of the big three.
Fourth, pick a package that you are certain will be around for years and years with the pros. There are plenty of packages (such as Bryce 3D) that made a big impact in the amateur community, but eventually dropped off the radar altogether, causing pain for many early adopters who ended up having to change their entire business.
Picking a 3D package is a lot like buying car. Can you get it serviced? Will the manufacturer be around for a long time or are you buying a Tucker or a Delorean? Can you drive it? And so on.
