[Leonardo]

ludi's right, great work leo
by the way i am doing architecture stuff too and my models tneds to stay pretty simple geometric (not much nurbs at all)

so assuming what you've say in this post, if I want a simplier solution, meaning that i would do all in one or 2 softwares, i shall choose to modelize and render via maxwell in either one of those 2 :

a- maya + maxwell
b - max + maxwell

Which one would be fastest to master, assuming i'm starting from scratch ?

Hands down on 3DS MAX (I have never used MAX btw, in my school they teached FormZ... God I hate formZ )

Why max over Maya?
Well, you'll notice that Max is pretty much the standard in the architecture world. When I was looking for a job the firms that did 3D, they all used VIZ = MAX. (Maya is used more for motion pictures)

Another choice, which is the one that I'm learning right now (well, it only took me 1/2 day to learn the program...edit: meaning it's a very simple straight forware program to learn based on a person knowleable in autocad with some 3d experience ) it's SkecthUp. They have a demo you should try it. Maxwell have a plugging for it too although I don't think the pluging integrate itself as well as it does in other applications.

Regards,
Leonardo

[cubicle gangster]

I do architectural stuff in rhino, much prefer it to max.

Might just be because of what i'm used to, but I dont like doing any modeling in max, just texturing, I find for smaller models its fantastic but once you get bigger I find it harder to keep track of objects and organise them.