3d animation applications

[gamenutt]

I was thinking about getting into 3d animation. I was wondering what some people thought were the best applications to learn. Like what is most widely used in movies and games. 3d studio max, maya, rhino, etc. And what kind of hardware I should have to run em. I have right now

pentium 4 2.53 GHz
1024 mb ddr pc2700 ram
audigy 2 platinum
geforce 4 ti 4600
Sony Dru-510a dvd-r
toshiba 16x dvd
52x tdk cd-r
then I got 3 ata 133 7200 rpm drives 80gb/60gb/40gb
and then another 80gb and a 60gb networked from another machine

anything I need to increase for 3d animation?

 

[Yaka]

if your thinking of starting up i suggest you buy Computer Arts and its sister mag 3D Arts both of which have cd/dvd with free 3D apps which can be upgraded to the latest revisions for a good deal less than maya,3dstudio max and lightwave.

more recent was an offer to upgrade from the free cover discs version of Truspace to the latest version for a few hundred quid. also these mags have very useful tutorials to help you get started