Generalist 3D software, compared.
Six applications that can take a shot from empty scene to rendered frame. Blender costs nothing and has become genuinely production-capable. Maya still owns character animation. Houdini owns effects. Cinema 4D owns motion graphics. 3ds Max owns archviz. Unreal is the one that renders while you watch.
Prices checked October 2026 and sourced below. Several vendors no longer publish a plain number, so read the caveats.
At a glance
| Blender | Free and open source, with no tier above it. Modelling and sculpting are excellent, the render engines are good, and the only real cost is that no vendor owes you support. |
| Cinema 4D | The motion-graphics standard. MoGraph has no equal, it is the most pleasant of these to learn, and Redshift comes with the subscription. |
| Maya | The animation and rigging standard for features and episodic. If a character performs on screen, odds are it was animated here. |
| 3ds Max | Architectural visualisation and games, overwhelmingly on Windows. Strong modelling, a deep plug-in market, weak animation. |
| Houdini | Procedural by design and the effects standard — destruction, fire, water, crowds. Everything is a network you can rebuild. |
| Unreal Engine | Real-time. The engine behind virtual production and LED volumes, increasingly used for final pixel rather than previs. |
What they cost
The spread is wider than in post-production: one of these is free forever and two cost more per year than a used car. Note how differently they are sold — Autodesk by the seat, SideFX by what you earn, Epic by whether you ship a game.
| Tool | Platforms | Pricing (USD) | Primary use | Biggest strength | Biggest drawback |
|---|
| Blender | macOS, Windows, Linux | Free, GPL — no paid tier | Everything, for one person or a small team | Costs nothing and the modelling and sculpting are first rate | Nobody owes you support, and studio pipelines rarely expect it |
| Cinema 4D | macOS, Windows | $109/mo, or $839/yr billed annually. Maxon One $1,265/yr adds Red Giant, Universe and ZBrush | Motion graphics, broadcast, design | MoGraph, and Redshift included at no extra cost | Subscription only; simulation and character work are shallower than Houdini or Maya |
| Maya | macOS, Windows, Linux | $255/mo · ~$2,010/yr · $6,025 for 3 years | Character animation, rigging, film and episodic | Animation tools and the pipeline every facility already runs | Expensive; dated in places; modelling is not why you buy it |
| 3ds Max | Windows only | $255/mo · ~$2,010/yr · $6,025 for 3 years | Architectural visualisation, games, product | Modelling and the deepest third-party plug-in market | Windows only, and animation is well behind Maya |
| Houdini | macOS, Windows, Linux | Apprentice free (non-commercial, watermarked) · Indie $299/yr · Core $1,475/yr · FX $3,505/yr | Effects, simulation, procedural everything | Indie tier is extraordinary value if you earn under $100K | The steepest learning curve here by a distance |
| Unreal Engine | macOS, Windows, Linux | Free for games to $1M lifetime gross, then 5% royalty; non-game companies over $1M revenue pay $1,850 per seat per year | Virtual production, real-time, previs | You see the finished frame while you light it | Not an authoring tool — you still model and animate elsewhere |
Maxon and SideFX figures are from their own stores (US, individual licence, October 2026); paying monthly rather than annually costs roughly a third more. Autodesk no longer shows a price to an anonymous visitor, so those come from a third-party guide reading its buy pages. Team pricing is higher throughout — Cinema 4D is $1,149 a year for a team seat against $839 for an individual.
Where each one sits
Blender
Free, open source, and no longer the compromise it was. Modelling, sculpting and UV work are genuinely first rate, Cycles and EEVEE cover offline and real-time rendering, and Grease Pencil does 2D inside 3D better than anything else. The honest limits are organisational rather than technical: no vendor to call when a deadline is burning, fewer studios whose pipeline expects it, and a plug-in ecosystem that is enormous but uneven.
Cinema 4D
The one people call pleasant, which matters more over a decade than any feature list. MoGraph remains unmatched for procedural motion design, the After Effects relationship is still the smoothest in the business, and Redshift arriving with the subscription removes a cost the others charge separately. Where it gives ground is depth: Houdini will out-simulate it and Maya will out-animate it, and for character-led film work that gap is real. Worth doing the arithmetic on the bundle: Cinema 4D alone is $839 a year, while Maxon One at $1,265 adds Red Giant, Universe and ZBrush — so if you would otherwise buy ZBrush ($399) on its own, the bundle is already cheaper.
Maya
Still the animation standard, and the reason is the graph editor, the rigging tools and thirty years of studio muscle memory. Almost every feature pipeline assumes it. It is expensive, parts of the interface show their age, and its modelling tools are not why anyone buys it — but if a character has to act, this is where that happens.
3ds Max
Dominant in architectural visualisation and strong in games, with modelling tools and a third-party plug-in market that neither Maya nor Blender quite matches. Windows only, which rules it out on a Mac, and its animation tools have been second to Maya's for a long time without that gap closing.
Houdini
Built on the idea that every operation should remain editable, which is why it owns destruction, fire, water, sand and crowds. Change a parameter at step three and the next forty rebuild themselves. The Indie tier at $299 a year is the single best value in professional 3D if you qualify. The cost is the learning curve, which is steep and genuinely different — you are building systems, not pushing points.
Unreal Engine
Real-time changed what a set can be: LED volumes, in-camera effects, and a director who sees the environment on the day. It is increasingly used for finished frames rather than only previs. But it is an engine, not a modeller — assets are built in one of the applications above and brought in. The licensing is also the most conditional here, turning on whether you ship a game, how much you earn, and whether your code runs Unreal at runtime.
Capabilities by discipline
Nothing here is strong everywhere, which is the point — these are not six answers to one question. Editorial judgement, not measurement: ●●●● best in class, ●●● strong, ●● capable, ● basic.
| Tool | Modelling | Animation | FX / sim | Rendering | Motion graphics | Studio pipeline fit |
|---|
| Blender | ●●●● | ●●● | ●● | ●●● | ●●● | ●● |
| Cinema 4D | ●●● | ●●● | ●● | ●●● | ●●●● | ●●● |
| Maya | ●●● | ●●●● | ●●● | ●●● | ●● | ●●●● |
| 3ds Max | ●●●● | ●● | ●● | ●●● | ●● | ●●● |
| Houdini | ●● | ●● | ●●●● | ●●● | ●●● | ●●●● |
| Unreal Engine | ● | ●● | ●● | ●●●● | ●● | ●●● |
Rendering assumes each tool's usual engine — Cycles for Blender, Redshift for Cinema 4D, Arnold for Maya and 3ds Max, Karma for Houdini, and Unreal's own real-time path. Swapping renderers changes that column more than anything else on this page, which is why renderers get their own guide.
What to actually buy
| If you are | Use | Because |
|---|
| Starting out, or funding it yourself | Blender | Free, complete, and good enough that cost is no longer the reason to pick it |
| Doing motion graphics or broadcast design | Cinema 4D | MoGraph, the After Effects workflow, and Redshift in the box |
| Animating characters for film or episodic | Maya | The animation tools, and the pipeline every facility already runs |
| Doing architectural visualisation on Windows | 3ds Max | Modelling plus the deepest plug-in market in archviz |
| Blowing things up, or earning under $100K | Houdini Indie | $299 a year for the effects standard is not a close call |
| Shooting virtual production | Unreal Engine | Nothing else puts the finished environment on the wall on the day |
The common pairing on independent work is one generalist plus Houdini Indie when a shot needs effects the generalist cannot reach. Unreal joins when the camera has to see the environment live.
One that is no longer a choice
Modo is gone. Foundry announced the end of development in November 2024, shipped 17.1 as the final release with no further patches, and removed downloads and documentation in November 2025. Existing users were offered a ten-year licence to keep working. If a guide written before then recommended it to you, that recommendation has expired.
Sources
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