So, Its my first post and here but i have been looking through some of the work done on this site already and I must say I am very impressed. I have acquired a copy of Maya 2009 and 3d studio mark 2009, and now I am looking for some advise on were I should start. I guess I ill go back a bit and give a bit of my background. Currently I work in an IT department i troubleshoot and repair POTS lines, ADSL/ADSL2+, VDSL/VDSL2+, line as well as troubleshoot or company's IPTV system. To be quite frank I'm getting quite sick of the line work and am looking for a change, so I thought I might look into doing 3d animation//modeling in hopes of gaining knowledge//experience to possibly change my career path. My question is fairly simply, I don't have much experience with 3d animation, I have done some work using adobe after effects and premier for video editing but I wanna learn the 3d animation world and need to know were I can start. Now a lot of people are going to say there are great school's out there for this kind of thing but, I don't have the time to dedicate my life to school, this is something that I will be doing over a period of time, doing most of it on my own. I guess if anyone knows other than the tutorials were i can find information on the basics of Maya using its shortcuts and learning the lingo even would be awesome. I hope there's someone out there who might be willing to share some knowledge with a fellow enthusiast

if you want to learn how to use maya i suggest looking through youtube, believe it or not youtube has a LOT of tutorial for beginers,

which should help you undestand the user interface and terminology,

hope that helps,

Originally posted by The Doctor
Now a lot of people are going to say there are great school's out there for this kind of thing but, I don't have the time to dedicate my life to school,

Originally Posted by

i've never seen or given this advice ever tbh

more commonly i would say (and hope) you get told to do the tutorials that come with Maya
seriously, the tutorials that come with the program will be relevant and up to date, and after you get sick of those you can go on to other tutorials.

i say this because i find people who start with outside tutorials will come along and say 'where is the modelling menu set?' or 'where is the merge vertex?'

and if you start with old tutorials prior 2008 i guarentee you'll definately be asking those questions. questions that are answered if you did the tutorials that came with the app.

and given your background i'd say you'd be able to figure out the answer as well...

sorry if i came across as arrogant....

but anywho, i'd also suggest the ones from 3D buzz, when i was there a year ago their tutorials were pretty good, and reinforced what i read in the inbuilt tutorials.
you do get a lot of nonsense in their stuff, but it does keep you from falling asleep somewhat

i've only seen a few youtube tutorials, and as you'd expect, they aren't as good as a proper video tutorial, by that i mean one that hasn't been killed, slaughtered, and maimed from youtube compression
if you like to squint and get up real close to the monitor then go for youtube videos

but seriously, read the tutorials that come with the app
you can find them in the Help menu

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Cool, thanks I managed to find a couple beginner guides par say so I guess I will take it from there. Wish me luck maybe ill post some WIP once I get the hang of things

have fun dude! you'll get a lot of good pointers from the people here

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that's a "Ch" pronounced as a "K"

Computer skills I should have:
Objective C, C#, Java, MEL. Python, C++, XML, JavaScript, XSLT, HTML, SQL, CSS, FXScript, Clips, SOAR, ActionScript, OpenGL, DirectX
Maya, XSI, Photoshop, AfterEffects, Motion, Illustrator, Flash, Swift3D

Hi

Just wanted to echo what people have said on here already. I learnt Max though doing the built-in tutorials. Yeah time and effort involved but worth it.
Also try and find a mentor who will help you with the tricky stuff. You will learn really quickly that way.

I learnt Softimage at a 'school'. Now I'm learning Maya which I'm picking up really quickly through necessity! Hence I joined this site.

Once you have learnt one package transferring to another is possible quite quickly...mostly a matter of trying to find everything and establishing an element of control within the package (i.e getting it to do what you want it to do)

But good luck, you won't regret it.....although it won't be easy

-Mikey

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Max Head Going Maya...