Is 3ds max or maya worth it?

[WedgeBob]

being a self taught , used both 3DSmax, Blender & Zbrush. I prefer blender over anyothere 3d software, its easy to use for me, since I like to work more with my keyboard. however, ease of loop deletion and some other tools are very good in 3dsmax.
@MCampaigni , Although Blender uvtools are not as good as 3dsMax, but they are not lame, u can always use "f6" to get more options for your unwrap.
Its just my 2 cents. Since 3dsmax is defacto leader, i do stress everyone, looking for professional work to work on student version of 3dsmax, and learn 3d in outs with blender.

Well, to be honest, I generally feel more comfortable with standalone/external UV tools myself like either headus UV Layout or Steven ***'s UVMapper Professional to deal with Blender UVs, because the built-in UV editor in Blender can get plumb picky at times. Plus they're easier to use for UV layouts and texturing template exports, imo. However, for modeling and exports to UDK, can't beat Blender for those, but for the UV and texturing part, that's where UVMapper Pro and Photoshop come into play. Just a quick opinion on that issue. Can't argue with MCampagnini, his tools are pretty nifty for making Blender objects UDK compatible.

Even tho I do have student versions of both Maya and Max, I still keep turning to Blender far more than those tools, anyway. There's just something that feels more natural with Blender to me over those other ones. Can't quite make out what makes Blender feel better to me.