Re: Software Differences

when you model in 3d you usually use on of the multiple methods available, from nurbs modelling to boolean composition, to polygon modelling, or procedural/modifier based modelling or a mix of everything.

i generally use a mix of polygon and modifier modelling although boolean is one of those things that sometimes just come in handy to do some specific stuff inbetween.. and there are still other methods, i'm not being exaustive.

polygon modelling is when you start from a simple figure/primitive, and model your way up with vertex and face/polygon transformation..

skulpting in 3d is very like skulpting in real life, and that means that your tool will be like "floating" over the surface of your initial object (a sphere or a cube for example), and at every click or drag of the tool, it's like if you are carving stone, so you can configure brush shape, size, intensity, etc.. and model things without thinking about polygons or vertexes.. it's really good for organic stuff, although any of the methods requires practice.

i think polygon based modelling is better if you'r planning to work on game design (because you have to consider the fact that for real time animation, your polygon resolution should be low), although i'm not experienced with skulpting to tell you that skulpting won't get you the best topology on the surface of the mesh.

another advantage of polygon modelling is that for complex animation you should take into consideration every aspect of the polygon topology, because if it's not exactly right you might get undesired effects.

so i guess that skulpting bay be easier to get the visual aspect that you want, but polygon gives you better control of what you are sending into the animation mechanisms, although that also requires some knowledge about modelling for animation, and about animation (if you don't know what problems animation will give you, you won't know what you should avoid while modelling)

i hope you understood both techniques, and as in my previous post, i haven't told you which one you should use, only what's good on one and another, so you should make your own decisions =)

what you should do is little tests about what you plan on really doing: try modelling something with mudbox and animating in maya, and modelling the same thing in maya and animating it, so you can see the differences between them. you will see that skulpture modelling is much more intuitive (requires no knowledge about 3d topology and theory), but it will possibly give you more trouble while animating (when you try to rig a character for example.)

of course, at the first shot, skulpting will turn out much better, because if you don't know what you'r doing when you polygon-model, then your topology will turn out a good crap and will fail a lot in rigging and animating =)

ok, final consideration (my personal consideration):

skulpting (mudbox) is more intuitive and more easy to learn and to
transmit your ideas, and initially will probably even give you better results in animation

modelling in maya give you better control of your final result, so it enables you to refine your model to animate perfectly, although that requires some knowledge and experience, and it's also less intuitive (especially if you want to model what you'r imagining, in an optimal way for animation...)
when you start out, you'll try to model what you imagine, so it will turn out crap for animating. when you learn the rules about modelling for animation, you will see that to follow those rules will make it much more difficult to model exactly your idea.
anyway, if you're experienced and know what you'r doing, i personally think that modelling in maya will give you better results.
for a beginner it will probably give you much worse results

so that's it i guess =)