You want to learn 3D animation, modelling, VFX, texturing ( 2D animations with Blender 2.8 )...? This is the software to have!

The huge community behind it is amazing with the amount of tutorials and support.

I'd strongly recommend the newer versions here on their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ website as blender 2.8 ( at this time ) is a refreshing UI, performance up lift with some very welcomed features ( including better support for 2D animations )

https://www.blender.org/

The amount of free plugins is unreal, there is even more amazing addons available on

https://blendermarket.com/

The devs behind this amazing software release daily patches on their website... ( I have no clue why the steam version here hasn't been updated, but go to their ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ site I stated above )

I learned 3Ds Max in school, but I found blender to be faster and more intuitive.

( Hell, the movie "Next Gen" on Netflix was created in blender )

Its free, give yourself a solid week of learning the program in your free time and get into the world of 3d software...