How about FREE?
www.blender.nl
Only 3D program I use. You can do almost everything Lightwave or Max can do (With practice). You can model, render, animate, and create games.
Modeling:
Use standard, or nurbs modeling. etc
Rendering:
Radiosity, shadows, reflections, bump maps, spec, alpha, etc.
Animation:
IKA restrictions, motionblur, etc etc
games...
basically anything you can dream up. from frogger to space sims.
and thats just scratching the surface!
Been using it two years and I still don't knowhow to do a tenth of what it's capable of!
samples of my work:
www.b5-blender.com
www.b5-blender.com/render/
