Here's a shot I rendered last night.. it's a chrome plated skull.
I actually found the 3D Model of the skull online last night but it was missing the jaw and lower teeth.. so, I made them myself.
I assigned the chrome effects to the model, rendered it and... well... the image speaks for itsself.
By the way, the program runs $7,500 though I imagine warez sites distribute it freely.
Yep, Maya kicks major butt too, I've used that in the past as well when I was in school.
I think they might be discontinuing Maya and start marketing another modeling program.. or they're going to water down the program's capabilities and offer it freely, then sell expansion packages to make it more useful.
**** EDIT*****
Oops, I was wrong.. it's the unrestricted version but they are disabling the use of 3rd party plug-ins, the file formats are not compatible with the regular version, and it creates a watermark on the output. Here's the press release:
COMING FEBRUARY 2002
Alias|Wavefront is proud to announce a new way to make learning 3D graphics more accessible through the Maya Personal Learning Edition
A new way to learn Maya that's fun, fast and free!*
Maya Personal Learning Edition grants anyone with the desire to learn more about Maya, or 3D computer graphics in general, a seat of Maya for non-commercial use - registration renewable yearly.** Those using the Personal Learning Edition will have unrestricted access to the full feature set of Maya Complete including NURBS modeling, animation, inverse kinematics, Maya Artisan, Maya Paint Effects, particles, dynamics and Maya’s advanced rendering capabilities. The Maya Personal Learning Edition restricts users to non-commercial applications through the display of a watermark on images as well as through the use of a special non-commercial file format. Maya Personal Learning Edition cannot be used with industry-standard plug-ins.
[ January 14, 2002: Message edited by: Mike Pipes ]
It's a 20mb movie file, but damn entertaining