Hello Forum!
Anyone do any work with Maya? I have started playing with it and I find that it has tons of terms that only someone who has taken a class in it would know. I remember studio 3D had a nice drag and drop feature for where you want to put spot lights. I don’t see it in Maya.
And if I want to have the obect have a certain texture I have found the list of materials are seemingly presented in some sort of pseudo jargon or (Mayan?) almost another language.
3D Studio Max is the champion and yet I do not think that is unrivaled in my view. It is easy to work with him and yet intuitive. So my opinion is the best
I don’t work with Maya but rather Softimage, which I’ll be putting all this info on my renovated blog & web page which is coming together piece by piece 
What question do you have Xarzu the two programs are close to one in the same but very complex, no doubt about that.
xarzu, it’s probably because Maya is one of those industrial tools they use in fully fledged Pixar’esque animation studios and as the tools are VERY complex it requires a wide ranging level of understanding of how it operates (in the same way Photoshop isn’t exactly newbie friendly). In respect to 3D tools, the industry standards are Maya, 3D Studio Max, Cinema4D, and to a smaller extent Blender (the open source tool that’s catching peoples imaginations). You might want to buy a good book on Maya (I don’t have any recommendations as I don’t use it much) as it’ll be worth spending the time to get to grips with.