Comustion with Maya and 3dstudio max 7

[ourouk]

I am looking to buy combustion 3 and also a 3d software package. I have pretty much made up mind my between 3ds and Maya. Now the hard part, deciding which one to buy. I have just been to discreet's overdrive tour so I know what 3ds and combustion can do. Heck if I had butt loads of money I would be buying a flame or an Inferno. Any ways here is my questions I want to know the benefits of 3ds with combustion and are they worth it? Will I be ok with Maya? I would be a new user to 3ds and an intermediate user to Maya, and a new user to combustion. I have about $12,000 budget to get all the software and hardware. Also if any one has any suggestions on hardware config to make combustion kick some major butt that would be much appreciated.

Any other suggestions are cool with me.

Thank you guys for your help.

Kyp

[mrbkoren]

I

[mikedin]

I came from a MAX background and used combustion V.1 a bit when it first came out. I've since switched to Maya. 99% of Combustion is available to the Maya and MAX user. RPF native MAX images are the only link between the two and though it would be nice to utilize it's easy to accomplish the same thing without it. I would recommend staying with Maya as you know it better. It will save you a lot of time and headache going from MAX and being able to utilize RPF with Combustion Vs. knowing Maya and being able to use Combustion.