AutoCAD is CAD software designed for engineering and architecture. If your going to be using 3D Studio * products for animation and rendering, then it is a wise choice. Also if you think about things from more of a technical drawing mind set, it's a good program.

However to do animations well, your going to need 3D Studio Max or Viz.

autocad is very basic preliminary software
solidworks and Pro e are more advanced sofrware for similar use
i will post more info about them in a couple of days

Oh cool. Yeah I have read about 3d Max but never really new much about it.
My main aim is to be able to make 3d models. I am not bothered about the animations at the moment. I am just interested in building basic 3d models. Would 3d Max do this? I know its a lot so I wouldnt be getting it I was just interested.

Well, 3DSM is major, it's the industry standard and therefor takes its time to learn.
When you just want to make static models I would recommend Gmax.
http://www.autodesk.com/gmax
It's a stripped down version of 3DSM but it's free and aimed for game dev.
Well, another good editor for basic models is Milkshape 3D
http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/
It's shareware, you need to pay a little fee after using it for some days

It's up to you what you choose but these are the only ones I can think that aims for basic modeling (with no extraordinary overhead and such)

I personally believe that all the modeling programs is similar so there is really no easy program out there for a beginner, you just have to go through the struggle of using the program and youll be able to generate some neat models once you know the workarounds of the program. Because from experience I learned that if you learn one modeling program it is very similar to the next program, because it both do the same thing just finding where that shortcut key or that option pertains ot be the only problem from jumping from one modeling program to the next.

I started learning modeling on Litewave, then I jumped to 3D studio max, then I jumped to Softimage, this Softimage, program doesnt seem to be known, but it was the one program that created the Skeleton and model for Terminator 3. I believe it was also the program that created the A.I movie models as well, I say this in accordance to the book I have of it.

So in conclusion, yes any program is learnable, just have to struggle on figuring out how to use it, no real easy program out there, even if there was it probably dont have the features that you want to use in the long run.

Cool. Thanks for all the advice people it is greatly appreciated. I have a friend who owns 3d Max and says its great he says he doesnt mind me borrowing it so I may check it out. Does anyon have any good tutorials for beginners?

Although for now I am going to fiddle around with the open source software mentioned called Blender. It looks pretty good, however very complex.

Please post any good tutorials. Thanks in advance guys.

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of 3D Max. The industry stanndard now is Maya. Which I believed is owned by Discreet (same folks as Max)...so it will be interesting to see if Discreet screws with Maya the way they did Max after they bought Kinetix (the company that originally developed version 1 - 3)

I like Lightwave far better.

Another piece of software to check out is Cinema 4D. It's a rather impressive piece of software, especially given their support for Mac being the first none Apple program to be certified as Universal, and comes at a relatively cheap price tag compared to other solutions.

Of course, there is the free, yet powerful, blender3D, which is opensource. If your looking not to invest a lot of money, but have plenty of time, Blender is an excellent choice now since there are a lot community sites with video tutorials like Blenderartists.org...which you'll find me there under the sasme handle.

Oh cool. Well I have finally got hold of 3d's max until the 30 day trial is up, which I would like to use just to learn the basics with, as I may upgrade and purchase it in the future if I do feel the need for it.
So has anyone got any tutorials for 3d's Max?
Thanks in advance guys.
I have tried blender but have found it is pretty slow. I dont know if this is my computer or not but 3d's max seems to run perfectly.

For me, Maya hands down. Used to use 3DS max, but never went back after touching Maya. It's a little less user friendly as 3DS, but great if you practise on it.

Wow... very easy looking at those sample pictures. I've used these softwares before (haven't made any models recently) and all you'll need is POSER 5+ & BRYCE 5+

If you want to make props then I recommend you get 3DS Max 6+ along with it.

It's a very expensive investment but if you put all your hard work in it, it shouldn't be so bad. By the way, these are great softwares for beginners. I was a beginner myself when I started out and I already used these professional 3D Modelling programs. The only prerequisites you'll need are: time to learn, and most of all creativity and imagination of course.

I've tried Maya, Cinema4D and all the other expensive programs but they're very hard to learn putting aside the fact that they are really good software. I just wouldn't recommend them to any beginner artist. So good luck with that!