Now I have been using Maya for over 10 years and I am still a hardcore Maya junkie and have no plan of switching. With that, every few years I give Blender a try and haven’t really been impressed, maybe because of my comfort level with Maya; I can navigate the interface with my eyes closed – literally. If you are not familiar with Blender . . . It is a free open source 3d modeling and animation application.
Check it out: http://www.blender.org/
Check out this Blender demo Reel, pretty impressive for an open source application.
