Learning 3D... little help?

**Marked970** · March 24th, 2005, 12:57 AM

Due to the horibble U.S. school system, I've been forced to teach my self 3D modeling and such. I tried picking up XSI when the HL2 version came out, but it was far o difficult to figure out, and the tuts that Softimage and other sites provided were abhorid. I tried learning 3DSMax (and sort of did) from some VTM's on modeling weapons ment to be in Source. That didn't quite work out wellbecause of technical issues with the Max I was using. I really wanted to learn XSI because of it's cleaner looking workflow, but after the impossible 'beginner' tuts and the clean workflow completely confusing, I've given up on XSI for now. I'm in the process of downloading Maya to try it, and am hoping it will be the workflow I can learn with. That said, does anyone have suggestion about which program is better to learn on, and the perks of using one over the other? If anyone knows some great beginner, and I mean beginner tuts for pereferably Maya right now, or XSI/3DSMax? Maby the only reason I can't learn the programs is because all the tutorials I find are not beginner enough? Well, any way, I could use some advice.

Thanks!

Sorry if this is the wrong place, I'll chalk it up to being a noob.

**phade** · March 24th, 2005, 01:34 AM

There should be some tutorials available with Maya PLE and/or at alias.com

Other places that you may find useful:

Learning-maya.com - links to literally thousands of different Maya related tutorials.

CGTalk.com - Great forum for finding help for most all top 3D and 2D packages

3D-Palace.com - Free and Pay video tutorials for both Max and Maya

SimplyMaya.com - Free and Pay videos and forum for help.

thegnomonworkshop.com - Gnomon's pricey DVD's seem to get great reviews.

A cheaper alternative:

LostPencil.com - $99-111 USD for 15hrs. training on DVD/CD in modeling, texturing, rigging, and animation. Highly recommended.

**Slash** · March 24th, 2005, 11:39 AM

Im no expert, but as far as i know, its not easier to learn maya over xsi or max. but i`ve heard that the gnomon dvds are supposed to be awesome, so maybe maya might be a bit easier cuz of that.

**negativespace** · March 24th, 2005, 12:52 PM

Digital Tutors has basic Maya tutorials.

3dbuzz has tutorials for Maya, Max, XSI and several other programs.

**SteveO** · March 28th, 2005, 10:33 AM

Originally Posted by Marked970

That said, does anyone have suggestion about which program is better to learn on, and the perks of using one over the other?

To be perfectly honest, XSI, Maya, Max, LW, C4D, whatever, they're all difficult to learn, they all do basically the same thing and they all suck in their own special little ways.

Try all the demos and learning editions then pick the one you hate least.

-Steve

**Matt_Matt** · April 22nd, 2011, 01:09 PM

I had animation as a subject in college for two years. My lecturers were crazy, we started off with Maya. Then we split into two groups, one 3D Studio, one XSI, we all headed back to Maya and then in my second year we switched over to XSI again.

Anyway, they're all kinda hell to on someone who's starting because no matter which program you use, it has more menus and jargon than I could ever make sense of. I suggest you pick a program and stick with it, even if only while you learn the basics of modeling itself, because getting to grips with the program takes you a while.

In class, our first assignment to help us get going was to first model a tractor using ONLY primitives (they are called that, right? It's been a while for me) and deformers. So, the body would be made out of a bunch of cubes, wheels would be rings with tread made out of deformed (slightly twisted) cubes being repeated, etc. It helped us grasp the basics, it was simple enough to not overwhelm us, and we actually made some kick ass tractors using only basic shapes.