This ol one comes up time and time again. So im gonna put in my pence worth.

It is not the software that maketh the man.

All the software you've mentioned has been used for games or movies at some point down the line, and each has proved their worth. Having been lucky enough to have used all 3 I would say that Lightwave is the odd one out in its work flow methods, and also having a modeller interface and separate scene interface which I found a bit of an annoyance personally. Also I used Max before Lightwave and it was like culture shock when switching because the terminology is different too.

And when I finally arrived at Maya a few years ago it was like starting all over again especially after doing Lightwave for 2 years solid. But if I had a choice of any it would be Maya but Max for similaritys sake. But also I would like to say that Alias should take a leaf out of Discreets book because Max has some seriously cool plugins especially on the cloth side recently, where as the Maya cloth is a bit of a ball ache still after all this time!!

But I still love Maya nonetheless and use it religiously every day!!!
Subds absolutely guarenteed to blow every mother fu.....

_J