Maya Or 3dsMax?

curious if anyone else has experience with iclone, first ive heard of it, looking to just get basics into unreal nothing real fancy, have maya but it is a bit daunting at least for now. was hoping to see a bit more on zbrush thinking about getting it. can the a.r.t. tools be circumvented to get animated charcaters in or is this just a bad idea in general ?