I realise we're talking a gulf in quality here, as well as in some cases, hugely disproportionate ease of use - but people with $3000 worth of Amiga gear were producing 3D rendered movies and TV in the early 90s (Wallace and Grommit comes to mind, as well as Babylon 5).

The reason Wallace and Grommit comes to mind more significantly, is because this not only used Lightwave for 3D imaging, but also a PAR card for capturing the frames of the clay models. It was probably closer to the quality of the material produced by Pixar today, however it took a lot more work, was painstakingly complicated and took a hell of a lot more time to produce.

Babylon 5 is a much lesser example, and demonstrates the gulf in difference of quality between 'puters back then and your average Jesus Comp setup at Pixar or Industrial Light and Magic.

Also around that time Lightwave 3D was used on multi-processor board NT boxes, the cost being somewhat closer to your $10,000. These were used in a number of movies and TV shows.

Lightwave was probably the most incredible piece of software ever to be dropped in a box as a freebee. Sure 3D Studio is more sophisticated, always was, but until about 3 or 4 years ago didn't actually do real ray tracing.

But the senior citizens of computing amongst you will remember the Video Toaster, and that Lightwave 3D came free with an admittedly $2000 card of tricks. The Video Toaster allowed video effects to be used on live TV, one of many pieces of video production hardware that graced the Amiga in it's heyday.

So while we enjoyed Imagine, Real 3D and other low-cost alternatives, everyone that was into animation (and didn't own a PC or Mac) lusted after Lightwave 3D, usually because of all the scifi tv shows it was used on in some capacity (Star Trek TNG and X-Files amongst others).

nb Maya was always the dogs bollox, but hardly anyone with a casual interest in 3D could hope to use it back then.