Originally Posted by Nisgeis

They all pretty much do the same things on a basic level, but some specialise in certain areas. I have heard some good things about Wings 3D, but then people seem to switch to another 3D program after a while of using that. I've never used it myself, so I don't know how good it is. Then there is blender, which is open source and free (not sure if Wings 3D is free or not). Blender is very powerful and a lot of people use it and there is a lot of help available for it. Then there's 3DS Max, which is available as a trial for a month, but then it locks you out and it is very expensive to buy. Max has some very good tutorials, which you can work through and get a good grounding in 3D.

I think there's milk shape too, but that's not free either, but it's much less than Max.

Perhaps you could take a look at blender to start with?