What is a good 3D modeling, animation and rendering software to use?

The best software Ive ever used for these methods is http://lunapic.com/ The ease of use in this program is spectacular and this program will do anything you need to do when it comes to photo editing, animations and many other means of photo altering.

To be honest, It really depends on your area of expertise. Maya has superior UVW Unwrapping capabilities (or so I've heard) and Max is better for precise, analytical renders. Maya is also supposedly easier for animation, but I think that Max makes up for it with its documentation, that is, there are a lot of tutorials for Max, as well as a built in help function that has tutorials and walkthroughs for various features. This is especially helpful if you are new to 3DCGI. Blender is good if you want a free program that you can use to experiment on before you buy/"share" a copy of the big boy toys. Another plus is if you are making video games, Blender has its own Game Engine built in, so that's good if you don't want to learn how to use Unity or DARKBasic or another third-party engine.

there are several editors for 3d rendering, and some for animation, some for games, and some for video or movies, character rendering, or landscapes, freeware: Blender3d http://www.blender.org/ K-3D http://www.k-3d.org/ Google SketchUp http://sketchup.google.com/ Terragen™ http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ Anim8or Free 3D Animation http://www.anim8or.com/ _________ some trialware tools DAZ Studio poser http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/studio/download?_m=d Poser Pro http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/poserpro/index.html Pixologic Zbrush http://www.pixologic.com/home.php Softimage - 3D Software http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?id=13571168&siteID=123112 reallusion ~ iClone http://www.reallusion.com/iclone/ ..

If you are just looking to do it for fun, then use www.blender.com as mentioned above. Maya is used in the industry and is challenging to learn. However, if you are interested in doing something with 3d for a career by all means use Maya! To be blunt, it is the best, but also the hardest. The things it can do that other packages can't is something you don't even need to worry about at the moment. They are far more complex.