I would say it is definitely easier to start doing 2D stuff related to games. You can work on textures and stuff which is very useful to know in games. For 3D software 3D studio max is prob the major player and cost like $4,000. There is Blender which is free and very extensive. I would goto the blender website and look at the gallery to see what you can accomplish with it and try and find some tutorials.

Hi, well it depends of you..

For start you can read books but in fact you need to get your hands with the development, i would recommend you to start with free versions of game engines, game engines are like libraries wich makes you easiest the programming of games.

Check this page www.devmaster.net follow the links for 3d game engines and download the trials versions.

for 2d games i would recommend you torque 2d or Gamestudio.
good luck is a loong route.

Without a doubt, start with 2D if you are not already familiar with game programming concepts and graphics programming.

for 2D I would use SDL or allegro. Allegro is _alot_ easier to use than SDL. But once you abstract SDL with your own libraries its not so bad.

Maya or Blender for modelling.

Thank you all. Anybody who has other advice is welcome to post it, but this really helps. I did not expect to get so much feed back!