Modo is $995 and does most things out of the box. There are a few things missing compared with Max (Particles, proper hair, etc) but not much. Depends what you are going to use it for. Modo imports MoI objects perfectly.
WOW! For the heck of it I downloaded Blender 2.6. I have not seen Blender for some time and based all my assumptions on old information. The new interface is much nicer. It still does things in a bit of an odd way, but even after just an afternoon of messing around I think I could get use to it.
Even the internal renderer isn't that bad. It's better than Max's internal renderer. I tried Yafaray as well and so far so good. Don't know if this will be a "pro" option but I think I could crank out some paying jobs with it after a little learning.
The main problem with Blender is that unlike all other renderers that I am aware of it does not have the ability to import vertex normals along with polygonal data, which is a big problem when trying to render CAD data.
It depends, Mental Ray is very good at reflecting and refracting. But anti-aliasing/sampling is pretty poor compared to other renderers. IMHO
For example if you have small details like whispy lines or cracks modeled into something you really have to crank the samples up so they don’t flicker during an animation.
Other renderers sample differently so it isn’t an issue. It all depends on what you’re doing.
