Been using Blender on-and-off for many years. It's come a very long way, evolving from an abomination that made GIMP seem intuitive and into something mostly usable.

Blender can probably offer anything from 3DS or Maya, but it's FOSS and there are always add-ons. You'll probably have to work a bit harder. I still refer to API documentation, cheatsheets, web-search to remember shortcut keys, or sometimes find out how to do basic things. Much better than in 2.x.x, but not perfect yet. There is a lot of functionality requiring knowledge of a series of contextual key-combinations and not accessible through menus.

Recommended, but it'll be tough if you drop in-and-out. If Blender is your main, you'll be fine.

Been using Blender on-and-off for many years. It's come a very long way, evolving from an abomination that made GIMP seem intuitive and into something mostly usable. Blender can probably offer anything from 3DS or Maya, but it's FOSS and there are always add-ons. You'll probably have to work a bit harder. I still refer to API documentation, cheatsheets, web-search to remember shortcut keys, or sometimes find out how to do basic things. Much better than in 2.x.x, but not perfect yet. There is a lot of functionality requiring knowledge of a series of contextual key-combinations and not accessible through menus. Recommended, but it'll be tough if you drop in-and-out. If Blender is your main, you'll be fine.