Any 3D-ers care to give away some secrets?

I am still somewhat of a design noobee and I have just recently started learning Flash which seems to be a very cool program.

Anyway, I stumbled across BigWebmaster the other day and started looking through the 3D templates section. I saw a great deal of very cool flash animations there and was wondering what programs I would need to aquire to be able to produce animations of that quality.

I currently have FlashMX and Swift 3D. I created a simple 3D animation in Swift and exported it to FlashMX only to find that it makes for a very large file.

What I am interested in is what 3D programs you folks use to create your animations. And a short explanation as to how you keep your swf files small in size. I don't know, maybe I am asking too much.

But, thanks to anyone who can help a learner out!

PS:
A perfect example can be found here http://templates.bigwebmaster.com/3d_Style/. #6648

this might get more of a responce in digital art forum.

yea loads... only jokin, dq u know i dont but nuceo cud help

Well..........duh! Sorry folks! I completely missed the link to the digital arts forum. Sorry! Will put this over there. Mods can delete this one if they wish.

gaparker your obsesed!! lol

I moved this one and deleted your other as people had already posted on this one

3D stuff like that is usually created in dedicated 3D modelling packages such as Maya (my personal favourite), 3DS Max, Lightwave, Softimage XSI, etc. Then the resulting rendered images are incorporated into the flash or site layout just like any other JPG.

Whats the price-tag on Maya?