What is the best way to learn?

[Tton]

How do you suggest a high school student learn 3ds max by himself/with a few others?

[Koko Ed]

Originally posted by Tton
How do you suggest a high school student learn 3ds max by himself/with a few others?

Use the tutorials. Also go into the aniamtion forum and click on the links to other CG pages. Lots of invaluble information there as well.
Mostly just play around with the program. Just try to make something up.
And don't forget to have fun.

[Henry Anthony]

3ds Max is one of the deepest, fully functional, professional 3d apps available. There is no easy way to REALLY learn. Sure, you can goof around and render some primitives but to really learn it will require a strong committment on your part. I've talked with people who say they have become productive in a week but when you ask them how they like the IK (inverse kinematics) implementation, they look at you like they have been insulted.

Do all the tuts you can find. Also, sorry to say, read the documentation and then reread it. Buy books and read them. Find forums and read every post. After a year of this, you should be able to say you are getting a good start in Max. Don't forget that there are many plugins that take a good amount of time to learn as well. Then there is mocap (motion capture), texturing (you will need to be an expert in Photoshop, rendering (there are whole programs separate from Max for this like Brazil and Renderman, and compositing in Premier, Shake, and Inferno among others for starters.

Believe me, I am not trying to discourage, but don't go into this thinking it will not be work and that you can just "pick it up" by fiddling around. It will be work - but satisfying in the end and well worth the effort.

Live it, breathe it, go for it!

[Soukup]

supposing that you and your friends are going to work together do it like this.

1 everyone does tutorials.
split the tasks up between people.

have two do modeling
one do materialing
1 do lighting and camera effects.
1 to do effects

split everyone else up to do modeling/materialing

this will help a succesful work flow.

[Chris Nowak]

Heres whats worked for me, cuz I just hate doing tutorials. I find a project to work on. This is usually some simple thing that I make up on my own, but you could probably find something that you could do for school or make a promo video for your team. I basically just figure out exactly what I want everything to look like (obviously you want to set standards low if you are just starting). Then I go and do it with the reference books at my side. Thats basically how I learned everything. I dont really enjoy doing tutorials b/c I like to get something out of it. I can easily show someone the cool video clip I got from doing my own thing, but I dont really have a sense of accomplishment about something I just followed directions for.

[cgDynasty00]

start from basic tutorials , then until u can work more fluently , move on the more complicated ones... if your stuck, search the manual,

[Hailfire]

Although I'm a beginner at using 3dsmax, all I do is use the tutorials, download other assets made by other people and figure out how they created their models, play around with different functions and learn how everything works then later applying them to projects. Just by following these things, I find that I'm getting better and better at modeling things. Even if it only consists of lines.

[mtaman02]

the best way to learn anything is by yourself. when u think u got it; call a person over who knows about that subject more then u do and go over the mistakes u made together so that they may teach u how to avoid them / how to correct them on your own.

3d studio is a very good program to use when animating if and only if u know all the tricks to it and know how to use that program correctly.