I've checked out alot of the forums & I keep coming accross everyone talking about the Autodesk 3D programs <-- I hope I'm allowed to mention their name

I appologize if I've messed up there..... Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has suggestions for other programs/applications that can be used for creating dreams. The ones that are aformentioned cost quite a bit of money & I can't see spending it unless there was some return for it. I have quite a few video encoder/decoder/compression programs & I think I can possibly make them work in conjunction with CS2 but it would be quite a bit of work. Anyone have any suggestions?