I've begun to play around with 3ds Max. I'm very impressed by it. It's a cool program and very powerful. I find the interface easy to get used, despite the fact that there are a lot of complex things going on. I'm a long time user of AutoCAD (Autodesk owns both programs) and i feel like 3ds max is more responsive than Autocad. Autocad , in my opinion, is much too sluggish for what it does. in other words, i feel Autocad has become a way too bloated. But 3ds max seems to be relatively light weight compared to it. Autocad has some limted 3d capabilities, and it is very, very sluggish with it. I'm no programmer, but I definitely like the "feel" of 3ds max.