Some will say Lightwave is industry standard because Babylon 5 etc. Some will say Alias -> Softimage -> Renderman is industry standard because of every major motion picture article in Cinefex. Some will say it doesn't matter, but you'd better get Martin Hash's Animation Master because it's cheap and the only really useful skill is character animation anyway. Some will say Soft Image because the only really useful skill is character animation and the only good software for it is SI. Some will say MAX because everybody uses it and almost all of the game houses use it and advertise for people who work in it. Some will say it doesn't matter because once you learn how to be good with one, you can be good with any, it's just a matter of learning how the new package does what you already know how to do. Some will say you should get a pad of paper and a pencil because any artist can be taught software but no software user can be taught art. Some will say MAX because it has, by far, the most cool system architecture. Some will say <blank> because it's what they bought. Some will say Alias because it's NURBS modeler kicks any other known modeler's ass from here to next July. Some will say Truespace because it does everything the big things do and it's cheap. Some will say "What are you, a pirate?" Some will say SI because nothing is nicer than Mental Ray. Some will say MAX because of all the plugins. Some will say Lightwave because of all of MAX's plug ins. Some will say POV because it's free and it's a ray tracer. Some will say MAX because it's a scan line renderer (but you can use ray tracing if you think you need to but you don't need to so if you do you suck). Some will say Maya-NT-Alpha [Alias vapourware] when it finally comes out, because it will rock speed wise and be the bestest totally cool amazing work flow feature laden... Some will say write your own [from orbit. it's the only way to be sure] because they have day jobs.
My advice? Try to get a better handle on what you want to do. I know, you
want to do it all or any of it. That's OK, just harder. Buy some magazines
and read the articles. See what the articles in 3d Design have to say about
"How to <blank> in <Blank x.0>". Try to get a feel for what the programs do
and what they don't do. Learn about the concepts integral to the whole 3d
modeling animation/rendering issue. Learn what ray tracing (for instance)
really is (remember than at least 30% of what people tell you (especially
about ray tracing) will be incorrect. Once you know what it really is,
determine if you really need it. Ray tracing is a good example, as people
have for years now held to it with religous fervour as the be all and end
all or rendering. This has 20% to do with what it is and 80% to do with when
it was and 50% to do with people being stupid. [My take? You don't _need_
ray tracing. I sure want it as an option. I would not use a ray trace only
renderer if I could help it.] This whole approach applies to everything from
NURBS to raytracing to radiosity to bump maps to hardware acceleration [ if
you've never done 3d before, hardware acceleration will be cool, but you may
be doing such lame little learning models and animation that you never
really use it, buy more memory instead (that sort of issue)] to physical
based animation to what flavour of anti-aliasing to how ugly the UI is. Of
course, we can't ask that you become a maven before making a purchase, but
try to have a little patience. Flip through some of the "How to Use