I am extremely envious of their 3D modelling artistry. I have been trying to get my hands on a 2nd-hand copy of 3D Studio Max for ages, but when the opportunity has arisen it was either an empty promise or I happened to be short on cash. I can say that I will never spend $5000 on the latest release. Not in a million years.

I recently discovered several mesh-based shareware available for download for free from the internet. I am still figuring out how to use them. They are not as good as 3DS obviously, but if I wanted to create simple models (spaceships, alien monsters, etc) for masking and bitblitting I just might be able to do it. Of course creating scale models with mesh-based software is difficult, but not all-important if you just want to do something for impressions-sake, or for fun.