I am dling gmax as we speak. The biggest drawback that I saw at the time I looked at gmax was the fact that you cannot
"render with, or write plug-ins for the free version".
If you look at the chequip.s3d files, you will see that a lot of that was created with plug-ins to 3DS Max. But for a free product, gmax is a great deal.
The other one to look at is Blender, also free. They have their own format but I think there are plug-ins for other formats.
And finally, Milkshape. It is not free but really cheap. It converts between the various common game formats and also renders. A very handy tool to have. I keep expiring my 20-day trial period so I don't have a working Milkshape.
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