There's many free modelers, but take this in account: most of them will not allow you to create animated models and hardly any of them allow you to export to .x format (which fpsc is using). I've got milkshape for conversion, but I'm having a problem opening animated .x models exported with milkshape.
I'll add another one to the list, much less expensive then 3DS Studio Max, but when it comes to game modeling one of the best around: gameSpace
http://www.caligari.com/gamespace/ I've used in the past and it's excellent for game content creation. Many features, many import & export features. When I used it, it had a problem with exporting directx models (.x), as many other 3D apps do have that problem. I'm not a user anymore, got TrueSpace now, but from what I've heard there's a new .x exported in gameSpace now, one that works with fpsc.
I'm considering getting the gamePak for trueSpace, the expansion that will add all of gameSpace's features and import/export formats to trueSpace.