Ben needs something new

Long ago, in a galaxy much like this one I used to use Mario Paint to animate 4 to nine framed "movies" Well, I've gotten the animationm itch once more, and I've tossed $500 into this computer in the past week. I've decided that I'm going to actually do something that will utilize all of this power. So I'm here to ask all of you to point me in the direction of a good 3D content creation (Rendering? Ray tracing?) program. The following are the most important considerations for the proggie I'm after
1: Cost (I'm not rich, see above, I'm down $500 )
2: Less than clifflike learning curve. I've never used any content creation software yet, and I'd like to be able to make more than a tetrahedron in the first week
3: Accuracy, Well having something that looks like it should is nice, don't you think?

And now for the features I wouldn't mind seeing.
1: Wire framing and opaques.
2: Bitmapping/texturing
3: Do they do animation?

Thanks for all of your help.
Cheers.