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Maya 2011 or Blender?

Discussion in 'Asset Importing & Exporting' started by xxxDjdogxxx, Jul 13, 2011.

?

Maya or Blender with unity?

  1. Maya 2012

    39 vote(s)
    42.4%
  2. Blender 2.58

    53 vote(s)
    57.6%
  1. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  2. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  3. kerters

    kerters

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    Guys, its not that you can generate awesome graphic effects like these with a good timing of button mashing like in guitar hero :)
    Both tools are good for creating art, but at the end its the artist behind the monitor with is doing art no matter if Max ,Maya, C4D or Blender is used.
    If you want to work for big company's as an artist in the game industry, get 3ds Max (just because of plugins).

    Else If you want to live from making games with Unity use Blender and Zbrush (gorgeous combo BTW. ^^).

    Cheers,
     
  4. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  5. Tiles

    Tiles

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    Well, you can also make 3d graphics with Milkshape. Who needs edgeloop tools :D

    Redbeer, have you even noticed that you start to label all other people in the thread that doesn`t agree with you as morons? You introduce words like suck, unprofessional, and what not else into the discussion. Something that nobody never ever really said. You tell us that we are too dumb to use the right workflow and tools over and over. And again and again you try to put us into the corner of Blender haters. Again, i AM a Blender user, it is part of my pipeline. I love and use it it, i submit bug reports very regularly. No sir. I am definitely no Blender hater.

    Did you even notice that you talk to experienced people here? To professionals who make a living from making 3D graphics? People who know what they do, and what they talk about? Do you really think all people out there are so stupid that they cannot see which end of the dog is the face, and which one is the tail?

    Time is money. Every professional is happy to use a tool that is faster, more efficient, and produces the better result. How comes that professionals use tools like Maya, Max, Cinema4D etc. then? Tools in the price range of a car. And not Blender? All morons? Really?

    Ah, wait, you already gave the answer. Maya users have paid so much money, and now they simply don`t want to feel like idiots by using something free, right? You don`t even waste a thought that it is really because Maya is the better tool for most of them, and more than well worth the bucks.

    Have a look what place Blender really has in the professional industry. Blender is a hobby tool. For good reason.
     
  6. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  7. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Speed. Indies need to the tools that deliver results in the shortest amount of time. Any and all shortcuts help us compete more. EA has moved its CORE business model to mobiles. They intend to flood the mobile market and dominate it, then raise prices. This isn't guesswork, its what they've said.

    So if tools help an indie compete, via maybe some really nicely rendered jumbo jet and some patience, plus the tools to model faster, or better lip synch tools or whatever, then maybe an indie or very small studio still has a chance. A lot of if a game is hit or miss is directly in the presentation and first impressions.

    1. I love n-gons. Nobody in their right mind wants to screw around in the year 2011 who have done any kind of fast modelling without them.

    2. Powerful rendering capabilities that are multi cpu capable with industry standard lighting models - mental ray etc. You claim indies don't need them, but my game does indeed, need the best rendering it can get. When I bake textures, I want them to look amazing. I want the edges to correctly bounce light between them. It looks nicer by far.

    3. normal mapping. Maya's high poly to low poly normal mapping "just works". It doesn't matter where it is or what size it is, it just magically works. Every time. And fast. And top quality. This is essential for indies. Not just a consideration, but essential if indies are to compete with big boys.

    4. multi-layered animation tools that can be edited at any point in time without messing up anything else. Bones that can be added halfway through the process and removed halfway through the process without messing stuff up.

    5. ultra fast gpu based rendering for rendering stuff really fast to test. Indies don't have render farms. They can gpu render (with reflections, AO etc) in a fraction of the time and then leave the machine on overnight.

    You will notice I am focussing on things I see as a positive in maya rather than putting down blender. There is nothing wrong with blender and the first thing when people ask which modelling package to get, I always answer "blender" - you can see my replies by searching forums. I even recommended blender for 2D line / vector work.
     
  8. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  9. Tiles

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    Wall of text. Again. Impossible to answer. But most of it is this absurd that it doesn`t make sense to answer anyways.

    But you said other words that you have put in MY mouth. And i never said that you SAID that. I say you make us all look like. That`s a difference. You don`t need to call somebody a moron directly to call him a moron.

    The point remains. From your angle of view the whole CG industry is made of morons because they use commercial apps that fits their needs, instead of using Blender. Nobody is really clever but you. And Blender is the uber app. And that is nonsense.

    To add a few points to Hippocoders list:

    - Professional support. Like offered by professional companies. Yes, it may look ridiculous. Just ask in a forum when you have a problem. But it is a killer argument for most professionals. Pros don`t have the time to wait a week for an answer. They call a hotline. That`s one of the main reasons why open source software is so rarely used in the industry.

    - A official pipeline to professional render engines. Vray for example is a industry standard. Yes, there is a plugin in the works. But that`s not official, nor is it finished.

    - A official pipeline to professional plugins and tools. Well, this is something where Blender cannot really change anything besides providing an API and make it attractive enough to develop for. The problem here is the money though. Blender is open source. There is nothing to earn really ...

    There are surely more points. And also other things to improve. Like the weak material system. Or the grey in grey standard theme. Or ... . ah the list is endless. But that was not your question.
     
  10. kerters

    kerters

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    Well, you spent 4.700€ to feel like a professional :)
     
  11. Tiles

    Tiles

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    That`s a point :D
     
  12. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  13. Tysoe

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    I don't think anyone argued with you, almost all the people that favored Maya said that Blender was excellent especially for the price but Maya is better overall. If you can comfortably afford it then Maya has a good chance of being the better choice. For many people with successful jobs or students using it in their studies Maya isn't really that expensive.

    How much do people pay for your cell phone plan I got a barebones cell phone plan and it costs me about $1200 a year, or better your cable TV which isn't a necessity at all and doesn't pay you back. A lot of people pay more for one of those in a year than they would for Maya and Maya in the hands of a skilled user can pay for itself in days if they are being paid to use it.
     
  14. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  15. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    You have argued your case for blender many times, are you sure you aren't posting just because you want to get the last word in? :)
     
  16. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  17. Tiles

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    Famous last words? It`s working now ...

    And i told you that i was once stopped by the N-Gon barrer, that i would have had to redo the mesh. That Blender didn`t do the job here. I even explained where it comes from. That reconnecting an edgeloop isn`t always possible when you are limited to tris and quads. And i got totally ignored. Because it didn`t fit into your arguments. Yeah, i`m nobody ...

    I was told by you more than once that i use the wrong workflow and tools when Blender is not enough for me. That`s calling me dumb and unexperienced, and is labeling me as a moron, too dumb to learn Blender. Not that it really matters that i AM a Blender user, and am comfortable with. Yes, this is reading between the lines. But the letters between the lines are a bit too fat to be ignored. Even when you haven`t really meant it that way.

    And you even repeat it. All morons out there, they all do it wrong, the whole industry is wrong, they all are using the wrong software. Blender is MORE than sufficient. You just need to adapt the workflow a bit ... Honestly, you damage Blender more than the biggest enemy could ever do. Because now when i try to talk about a good feature in Blender i will get an immediately "oh noes, another fanboy" reaction. And that was it with discussion.

    No, it is not. Blender is no professional toolset. Blender is your best choice when you have no budget. But when you want to produce quality then i would highly suggest to integrate more than just Blender into your pipeline. You can`t even render the title screen in a state of the art quality. At least i would never be happy with the result of Blender`s internal renderer. I have VRay to compare here.

    Blender is not bad. But it is by no means the first choice when you want to work at a professional level. And that tells you a Blender user.
     
  18. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  19. LaneFox

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    ^^ This wins.

    I've use 3dsmax, Maya and Blender in the past personally and I use 3dsmax professionally on a daily basis. Blender does not deliver like these tools, in any way, it's that simple. If you don't want to take a professional's word for it then go get yourself 10+ years experience yourself and do your own comparison and you will come to the same verdict. There is an obvious edge to the high end tools in every category.

    Gimp is a great free tool too, but does it replace CS5? No.
     
  20. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  21. Tysoe

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    Considering that much of unities core art pipeline is dictated by Autodesk and their .FBX format, if the FBX format is supported correctly it stands to reason that Max, Maya etc have a distinct edge over a third party tool that has to develop compatible plugins independently. Not that Unity supports FBX features 100% but still.

    With GIMP vs Photoshop. Photoshop has a considerable advantage if your a professional and use layers, adjustment layers etc. The workflow is a lot less cumbersome, you can work much faster and make advanced adjustments in a fraction of the time it takes to redo a bunch of layers and filters in GIMP which doesn't have the more advanced layer manipulation. Similar reasons to why Max and Maya outdo Blender in a fast paced production environment.
     
  22. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Playing devil's advocate here, but the FBX format doesn't support much from the big packages :) And its crap to use FBX to port between maya and max (god help you if anything was an editable poly before the port)
     
  23. kerters

    kerters

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    all mentioned 3d apps are great, download and test the trail versions => Enjoy :)
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  24. Tiles

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    I think everybody has already understood your "point" when it comes to Blender. But you haven`t left any space for other points nor other apps nor opinions. Good enough for you means for you that it has to be good enough for everybody. And this is wrong.

    LOL. Again. This is scary. With all respect to your love for open source software, Professionals uses Photoshop, not Gimp. Try to open a Unity heightmap in Gimp, or try to export a heightmap to Unity and you know why. 8 Bit per channel is ways not enough for professional needs nowadays.

    And that`s Maya, and not Blender when you need to choose between those two. Which gets agreed by nearly everyone in this thread but you.
     
  25. LaneFox

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    For the most part, yes, and it boils down to what the user needs. Like I said before Blender is sufficient to get you by but there's no doubt that Maya and Max are better tools for the job.

    Free, acceptable.
    VS
    Expensive, much better.
     
  26. Redbeer

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2011
  27. Artimese

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    Ahem, this is sorta like comparing "Game Maker" to "Cry Engine 3"... A free modeling program like blender is a good start, but its not something that the industry uses today, Maya on the other hand is the serious investment, something thats used from AAA games to pixar animation movies. If your a small indie dev, Blender is technically your only option (unless you can dish out the money for Maya), but once you break through the industry, get use to Maya/3ds Max.
     
  28. zine92

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    Erm, how do you compare 2D game engine to a 3D game engine? Blender and maya basically do the same things. Model 3d. But yeah what u say makes a lot of sense. Maya is industry standard. But 1 thing i noticed is that people often tell me Max is way better than Maya for game modelling and people tell me Warcraft 3 is done in Max. So why we arguing Maya and Blender? What bout Max. Is it really so similar to Maya that what you do in Maya can be done in Max. Just my 2 cents. :D
     
  29. Tiles

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    You are right. There is more than one industry standard tool out there. Not only Maya. That we argued between Maya and Blender is because that was the original question by the initial poster. What to choose, Maya or Blender.

    Maya comes traditionally from movies. Max more from the game and illustration corner.

    Offtopic: it should be impossible to delete postings after a day. That`s not nice.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 24, 2011
  30. Artimese

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    Its just a comparison, blender and maya are not the same, if your saying that then you haven't had the opportunity to use try out maya, it's a very sophisticated piece of software, its difficult to learn and tedious, but the results are fantastic, blender is far from maya, thats why maya costs in 4 digits why blender is absolutely free. You made a good point, 3ds max is a fantastic software I agree completely, but again this is from autodesk, ofcoarse its better.

    ps. is torque and cryengine 3 a better comparison? ^^
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2011
  31. lazygunn

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    This is a useless post but, this is a very silly thread, i think comparing GIMP/Blender etc to industry standard tools is.. silly
     
  32. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    ...yet that was the whole point of the post. And it raises deep questions as an indie. Where does the silly stop and the practical begin?

    Right now, EA owns the appstore. Does that mean we cannot raise our game despite having low or nonexistent budgets? Does that mean that blender or gimp cannot raise their game and compete?

    It's food for thought.


    The thing that's shameful about gimp and blender is they have every means possible to innovate and bring something fresh to the table, but they don't. And thats their loss. Blender and gimp could be the first that run properly on an ipad or android, yet no movement is made to bring them in that direction.

    Nor any features which cannot be found in expensive packages. The whole real core benefit of being free or indie is you do not answer to the man. Thats your biggest strength. I look forwards to when blender or gimp try to stop being the free and half-assed alternative, and start innovating.
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2011
  33. lazygunn

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    I think for basic modelling something like Blender would be fine , it's not so much saying it isnt up to the task, more a sense of perspective, particularly when it comes to workflow and the gamut of tools max/maya etc provide in regards to that, not to mention huge, specialised and highly skilled 3rd party support

    I suppose the point is, yes Blenders fine for Unity, i guess, theres no reason why it cant continue to become more competent too, but comparing it to max and maya is silly

    Anyone remember Milkshape?
     
  34. zine92

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    Hmm. Yeah well. Actually i have Maya on my com but my role as a scripter doesn't really need me to do much with maya anyways. I know Maya/Max is far more superior. However in practical sense where small indies/startups can't afford the licensing, blender might be good.

    Then again, if given the opportunity to use industry standard pipeline, i guess the quality of the work is definitely better. And i know blender is free which is exactly why people use it.

    Since it's free, it does what it can. Model. It fulfill it's requirement. However for better quality things, Max/Maya/other 3d softwares are preferred. Therefore i think blender might not be good but it's free. Can't complain right?
     
  35. Tysoe

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    I remember Blender in the 90's when it was a commercial project and they sold box copies with a chunky manual. Back then it was a really neat piece of software, Max and Maya were really young and XSI didn't even exist yet. It couldn't make inroads in the competitive market with Max, Maya and Softimage and I was really relieved when it didn't just disappear, it went open source. Today it's still a really good piece of software and you can't really beat it for free. You can definitely go a long way with it and produce amazing results. Same kind of thing as you can with Max/Maya just in most cases it's a bit more work. If you a budget but still want one very good complete 3D package it's an excellent choice. But the answer to the original question is that Maya is better, is it thousands of dollars better, that's for you and your pockets to decide.
     
  36. Shuddhashil

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    Well for me I am into Maya 2012, may be because I hardly used Blender. Being a beginner I find Maya more robust, as for 2D Development also which I am currently into Maya wins for me, being a Graduate Student I got Maya for free in Student Edition so never had the problem of bucks ;) As said by many I also repeat tools are secondary as long as you have the idea and what you feel comfortable working on. Some find 3DMax easy some for Maya and for some Blender, most important is what gets "your" work done easily and what YOU understand easily. Rest all depends on your idea and work. As for Maya the license on the Student versions last for 3 years but can be renewed. Well I am not worried by the time it expires I might buy one ;)
     
  37. niosop2

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    Everyone keeps mentioning Student Editions of Maya and 3DS Max, but nobody mentions the restrictions that come with the SE license. IIRC you can't use it for any commercial purpose. So you can't sell your models, and you can't use the models in any game you might want to sell or monetize in any way (ad supported freeware, etc).

    As for Maya/Max vs Blender, I actually prefer Blender. Most of that is due to me being more familiar with it, but once you become familiar with the somewhat non-standard control scheme, it becomes very productive. The lack of n-gon support isn't that big of a deal (and will probably be remedied in the near future anyways). It does lack some other features, like baking lightmaps with GI, but you can always export to Sunflow or something if you want to do that.

    Finally I'll just say what many others have said. Try them both. Give each a good workout for at least a couple weeks, then pick the one that works best for you and your wallet.
     
  38. the_motionblur

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    Simple answer - difficult to choose: Whichever you feel comfortable with and think you like best. A choice of tools is up to the user.
    You can achieve mostly the same results in both programs in different ways. Just like with any of the major 3D apps out there. The results only vary in how much you know about the program and how good you are at 3D art.

    Some differences are there: the renderer in Blender isn't as good on it's own as (from what I know) there are still a few things missing in the IBL and GI department. Some of the baking and other rendering algorithms may vary from one program to another.
    There most probably are other technical differences as well. Still - the user makes the quality not the software. I had to go through quite a few different softwares during my student time to learn this. So it's okay to aks which one is the "best". Most people ask that at some point ;)
     
  39. xxxDjdogxxx

    xxxDjdogxxx

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    is it me or did the thread name change?
     
  40. art4med

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    I used Softimage3D (now 'XSI') for years in the 90's. Then I stopped making 3D until the hardware base came "up".
    As a once-vehement defender of open source tools, I have used Blender for much of my output in the past 5-6 yrs.: its becoming competitive and setting up a render-farm for it is, of course, much lower in cost. HOWEVER, if you are working with others or in a studio environment of plan to be soon, one of the commercial s/w's is for you (and probably Maya)
     
  41. goat

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    Oil paints are much better for painting.

    Blender and GIMP could go through the UIs in Maya and PaintShop and pretty easily make them very similar based on their present functionality.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
  42. athomield

    athomield

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    no comparation between blender and maya !
    maya is the best ! but most of people use blender cuz it's free
     
  43. ivanzu

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    I had more problems with 3dsmax when exporting as fbx then with blender.I don't know about maya.
     
  44. WedgeBob

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    Well, you would need that workaround for Blender to work with Unity in the newer versions...but for anything older than 2.57 (2.49b seems to be best), there are no troubles bringing anything into Unity. Now through SoftImage Mod Tool, I have exported a few things from there, and I don't see too much trouble there, eiher (probably because it has an older FBX exporter through Crossroads)...
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2012
  45. woodpecker

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    well I think it still depends on your experience and knowledge and your preference difference to the 2, and since both have launch new versions the maya 2012 and blender 2.61. I think anything can be done to both as long as your good in improvising and ofcourse experience and knowledge. And the 2 can be both download free well as long as you signed as student in Maya, and you can download blender in just a moment. But still compatibility w/ ather programs also matter. Well I really don't know much at all.
    PEace ..v_
     
  46. polytropoi

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    I'm happy to say that Blender 2.61 and the 3.5 Developer Preview work together now like they used to - no need to export to FBX anymore, which was cramping my style pretty hard.
     
  47. Ebkac

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    Polytropoi, can you elaborate on your answer for us new to Unity? I'm still using the primitives as I'm just starting to learn it but I'll need to do some basic modeling by April at my current pace.

    Unity 3.5 will import the native .blend file? For game design purposes, (not talking high end CG art here), blender is able to do what we need for animation and low to medium poly models and work well with Unity?
     
  48. polytropoi

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    @ebkac, yes, you should be able to import Blender 2.61 .blend files directly into Unity 3.5, and saved changes to the .blend file will update in the Unity scene automatically. This hasn't been the case since Blender 2.49, but it's apparently fixed now, at least in the Developer Preview. And yes, you can do any kind of modelling, animating, 3D game developing you want to do with Blender and Unity, high or low end.

    I won't relitigate the Blender vs Autodesk arguments, except to say that you should make Blender your best friend...after Unity, of course. :)
     
  49. FlayMoreGames

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    Maya 2012 , Easy and fbx exporting is great :p
     
  50. sauli

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    I haven't used Maya, but I have used other 3d modellers, for example 3ds max for a long time, but nowadays using mostly Blender for polymodelling. It doesn't shine on every aspect, there are much better tools for sculpting like Sculptrix (which is also free) and Zbrush, 3ds Max has much better modifiers (Blenders booleans suck), 3d Coat has much better retopo and so on, but for basic 3d modelling and uv mapping Blender is my favourite. It's FAST to use - entering values with numpad is very easy (just press s-x to scale on x axis for example), you don't ever have to drag anything with mouse - just activate function and move cursor - very easy for your hand if you do it hundreds of times per day, viewpoint rotating is great, restricting moving, scaling, rotating etc to only one axis is so intuitive etc, subdiving only selected edges, merging vertices etc is much much better than in Max. Don't know how much Max and Maya have in common, but if I had to decide between Max and Blender I'd throw Max to the garbage bin.

    There isn't one best tool for everything, but for basic polymodelling Blender is my favourite.