Hi

"truespace worth the 300$ for the modeling, animating, and skinning?" - I think it's ok, it takes longer and I DONT like how it skins, never did that much animating with it so can't say.

I would try modo - you will fall in love with it then after 30days then decide, UV is so great, modeling is fast and fun

Plus there is a TS trial TS

try them both and see which one you like

Lightwave is older - modo is built by the people who did Lightwave in the beginning, but I would say modo is light years a head of most 3D packages in user design and modeling tools (toolpipe).

Its up to you but give them both a try

I got the opportunity to work with a lot of different tool and I would say maya is the best modeling tool, but since you want something less expensive I would say to stay away from cinema4D and truespace. I try them both and if you have to spend time learning how it works it's not worth it. truespace is outdated and cinema4d is not game oriented. I would buy modo, one of the best modeler ever and uv is like a zbrush extremely powerful. the new lightwave is a really good option. easy to learn and a powerful tool with great animation a lightmap baking issue.

I also would recommend blender... it's free, powerfull and has a great workflow as you get used to it. You have to spend some hours on tutorials first, but its worth the time. Either you will love it or you hate it

I have been using Maya for 7 years now since Maya 4.0 so I would recommend Maya, but recently I have got Silo and it is very good.

Unlike Maya it has a very easy to use workflow and discplacement painting, and a topology tool. It also has a very easy interface and it is very inexpensive. You can also UV map models easy with it.

From the point of ease of use and number of possibilities that are opened to do different things in different ways, I would only recommend 3ds Max. It gives you the oppurtunity to work in many ways and select the best one can be comfortable with.
If you are into movie making too then I would suggest that you should only choose Max. Its a money well invested software, thats opens plethora of possibilities.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this, I will tell you which one i will get once I try them and see which one i like the best.
Thanks again,
Doof

Doof_Guy wants to spend about 700 $. So it makes not much sense to talk about Maya and Max. Maya needs a price multiplier with factor 10 to buy it and the learning edition is useless. Max and Maya are not only expensive, they also come with very frequent upgrades to be paid. And Max crashes more often than other 3d applications do. They are no option for hobby or indie developers and are clearly addressed toward big studios.

If you want to have a full package with modelling, animation, texture baking and normal map generating then there is the free Blender available and the cheap XSI foundation.

But if you are willing to go only a small amount of percentage above your price range then you could look into Lightwave3d. This is a great package with all the rings and bells of Max and Maya but very much affordable, stable and robust. The range of tools is so big that you need some time to learn it.

Modo is even a better modeller (with the lack of animation) than all the tools above. I talked to professional studios and they said Modo has the best UV tool-set on the market. It even has a mode für 3d-painting and sculpting so you dont have to spend money for ZBrush and Bodypaint then.

Many Lightwave users bought Modo for modelling (but still do animating and rendering in Lightwave). But you can also do animating in Fragmotion or Milkshape. I would prefer Fragmotion over Milkshape.

Truespace and Gamespace are a bit buggy especially in terms of animation. But modelling works fine there. I used to model with Gamespace once. You could still do animation in another package. But they dont deliver the power and stability of Lightwave 3d.

Im in agreement with you on everything except the part about Modo not having animation. Modo is a complete package that you can even sculpt in now. Im a Max/ Maya and Zbrush user but have toyed with Modo some. It has some great sculpting tools and is fully capable of doing animations. GS out.

modo isn't a complete package yet. its animation features are very basic and not enough at all for doing animation work for games. modo has good uv-tools but i don't find that they are the best.

plus Im not sure if modo if a 2.5 3d rendering program, so Im not sure if you could sculpt with such massive amounts of polies like you can with zbrush. Personally If I had $700 to blow on 3d modeling I'd get zbrush, Blender, Photoshop and any importers/exporter you might need for your pipeline.