Doing 3d max..

It all depends on what you want to do. The best advise I can give you is to first work out what you want to do. 1. Then identify all the studios which do that kind of work and find out what tools they use. 2. Learn those tools. 3. Don't give up!.

I hate 3dsMAX. It is much better and easier Maxon Cinema 4D, tey it! check out http://www.maxon.net I also use Poser for my realistic human characters, it is the best, check out http://www.e-frontier.com I have used Maya a little, it is perhaps more professional than the others mentioned there, but you can do the same, and cinema 4d is improving day by day, I think it will soon let Maya outdated. There is a free program very similar to maya and Lightwave (the other one usually taken for more professional) it is called Blender (http://www.blender.org). It is good, but I preffer Cinema 4d. If you want to stay updated on that, visiti http://www.renderosity.com regularly, I think it is the best place for sellings, forums, help, contacts, publishing, downloading... etc for 3d arts.

I think thats great. I myself put off using Max for quite awhile, but once i started, found out its quite a powerful tool, only it need tweaking. And yes, there quite a steep learning curve. The thing is in max, there's a whole lot of features and tools available, so many in fact its boggling, or a headache in the least. Patience is the most important virtue, you don't need to be a Michaelangelo or Leonardo. Experiment with every tool you come across till before you move along to the multitude of plug-ins available out there. Also check out the many tutorial you can find free on the internet. I've had many 'dang, why didn't i think about that before' instances after i've read some of these. Don't forget to backup your work, coz you don't want to lose work you've sweat over, happened to me many times. If you do backup, keep the CD or whatever safe. And not least important, show your stuff once they're done, let people appreciate them and revel in glory. A good artist is on that has pride in his/her work. Other than that, there's nothing more than to just get down to it. Oh yeah, those tutorial videos that AutoCAD offers ( i think its on their website, Quicktime movies) they quite good when you're starting out or even for revision later on.