How to start in this industry?

[EnigsDesigns]

Well i started this on my own, a little try and error... ok... lots of errors at first, you just gotta be patient and the results will come.

One very important advice:
Don't ever be afraid to try things and experiment, and even most important:

HAVE FUN!!

(worked for me :p)

[Exipnos]

I would recommend the Tutorials on 3D Total (http://www.3dtotal.com/).
They have a bunch of tuts for 3D Studio Max.

I also like the Free Video Tutorial Series on 3D Buzz (http://3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_dl_list.php?c=2). I think they are a little bit outdated, but still very good. Specially for Beginners. And I think you have to Register on the Site to Watch them.

[BeBraw]

You could check out the polygon primer at http://subdivisionmodeling.com/wiki/tiki-index.php . It explains the basics well.

Remember to check out the free open source alternatives such as Blender (http://www.blender.org/) and Wings3D (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wings_3D). There is plenty of free documentation, even books and magazines, available for these programs. Particularly for Blender.

On modeling side Blender suits better poly by poly approach. Wings is better for those who like box modeling as it supports NGONs unlike Blender does currently. Lack of NGONs pretty much forces you to keep your models in quads and to attain good edge flow (of course triangles have their uses in certain cases).

Blender is not just a pure modeler like Wings. It is a whole suite containing full range of tools required for 3D production. It is continually evolving and it gets considerably better and better each year. Just check out the recent release notes to see what I mean.

[Lethn]

In all honesty courses will very rarely help you much in the 3D side of things when concerning the industry, the main thing you'll be needing is a 3D portfolio, without that qualifications mean nothing if you can't back them up. Concerning 3D however, tutorials can help I go to sites such as www.highend3d.com and learn off tutorials there, a lot of stuff that you can use to help you is actually free.

The main thing to do, especially with the mainstream stuff like Maya and 3DS Max is to just simply experiment, mess around with the different options and find out what everything does, tutorials do help but in the end if you go and try to test out your software to it's limits you'll know what kind of techniques you can use in the end and apply it to your work just by yourself, I myself very rarely use tutorials but they can help you if your a bit stuck.

Talking to the members of this forum is also a great idea and I have to say, some of the guys in here are the elite when it comes to modelling from what I've seen, you'll get better help from them than all the tutorials and course teachers put together because they're people who have either lots of experience with the software they use or they work in the actual industry.

[CoolDuck]

If you are going to model organic forms like humans or animals, then don't forget to study anatomy. You need to have knowlegde of the underlying muscles and flow to be able to model a human properly. And always observe...

Like others have already said: follow tutorials or video tutorials to become comfortable with the software, experiment and practice a lot and NEVER give up!
Good luck!

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