Blender, Maya animations

Hello, I am new to unity and was wondering, which one would be better or easier to use to make a animated character or figure: Maya or Blender? And if I made an animation how would I import it into unity? Thanks!

For animation, Maya... But if you don't have money for it, Blender works.

If you're a student, you can most likely get most Autodesk products free.

I however perfer 3Ds Max...

But for Unity, I'd say either Maya or 3Ds, because it uses FBX, and doesn't require Unity to convert the .blender file...

Personal preference, and also layout and ease of use... Blender is only good because it's free, and a ton of support...

And to import, you just drag and drop/use the menu's to import the asset, it's just like you import images and stuff.

I would say Maya if you have the money for it. Blender is good only because it's free. I used Blender for quite some time before i decided to.. you know, buy Maya. I used the student version of Maya for a while. It is free if you are a student. You can get it as long as you have a teacher that sides you(A teacher that has a .edu email) The only limit to the student version is that you can not use it for any commercial project. if you really can not afford Maya or 3ds max(Which is pretty usual for an indie developer) you would have no choice but blender.

As for animation... in maya and Blender, it's the same, you export all as a .fbx file and drag and drop the file from your file directory to the project, or by going to Assets->Import new asset.

Let's move on to the "Which is Easier" part. honestly, neither of them is easier to use than the other, but if you ask me, Blender. the only drawback is that the controls are different from Blender to Unity. In Blender, 'Q' for move, 'R' for rotate and so on(or as i remember...)and 'W', for example brings up a menu while in edit mode, to acess certain fuctions. But maya has mostly the same controls and so do alot of other 3D programs(For example: Zbrush, and CityEngine are 2 that i use.) overall, it is still up to you :D

I hope you find this helpful:D

                                      -Cheers-
                                      -Ashment-