/3/ - 3DCG

Just watch youtube videos and yes make basic props. Don't go for cars and guns or anything insane first because you'll fail if you try to jump too high. It's a slow grind but you'll make it if you keep at it, watch heaps of people work on youtube and the like.

as

>>633818
Like the other guy said - put your interests in terms of what you want to ultimately make to one side for a short while, just while you learn your way round. You need to be a receiver for quite a while before you become a transmitter.
The quicker you come to terms with these facts the better;
1. You don't know anything so be humble. The more you learn - the more you realise you don't know. Adherents to the Confucianism (google it) model of learning refer to themselves as the 'constant beginner'. Be like that.
2. It is going to be a LONG ass time before you make anything you're proud of and an even much, much longer time before you make anything that anyone besides your mum is going to want to look at, so keep it to yourself.
3. For reasons 1 and 2 above - don't work on any one model for longer than a day, at least for the first 2-3 months. Your rate of progression at the start is so fast that between one day and the next you are so much more advanced that there is simply no point in keeping projects alive for any length of time.
4. Don't try to take shortcuts. You'll end up spending more time on fixing your mistakes.
5. Cleaning up mistakes often takes longer than just deleting the fucking thing, starting over and not making the mistake second time round.
6. Learn this sequence of numbers:
2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18, 24, 32, 48, 64. When setting sizes, subdivision values, numbers of sides etc. use one of those numbers. You'll thank me later.
7. Get a prescription for Ritalin.
8. Stand up straight, stop eating crap and quit looking at porn.

Now go to bed.

If you know absolutely nothing about 3D id suggest you watch all these videos first https://vimeo.com/user904568 start with at the bottom "the polygon". This stuff will give you some good theory and explanations on many important 3D concepts.

Also youtube is a mixed bag, as a bunch of people don't know how to use 3dsmax properly and you may learn some bad habits.

A good channel for 3dsmax is Arrimus 3D which is great good for hard surface and uses 3dsmax modifer stack to good potential. Beginner playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESkQ9e1-lI4&list=PLxt9ZAGPLIpeB8TcHrpzxvEI4Ve3SfZBC
The channel is huge and has stuff all the way to advanced.

Grant Warwick is also good for advanced hard surface in 3dsmax when you eventually get there. But as >>633825
said, START SIMPLE. My biggest mistake when learning 3d was going too ambitious and ended up wasting ages of time dealing with bad habits/inefficient workflows and screwing up the basics. Start with stuff like a plate, a coffee mug, a pencil, ect. It will also give you good UV practice, like planar, cylinder, ect. UV unwrapping is something that catches a lot of people by surprise in its difficulty for the unprepared.

>>633818
Come up with a project you wanna do, keep it simple, and do it. As you need to, go look up tuts and vids to figure it out. I also keep a notebook (yes, a physical notebook where I can draw diagrams and shit) along with a folder of saved stuff for future reference. Learning by neccessity is probably the best way to learn. Keep projects short so you can do more of them, and don't agonize over shit, call it "good and done" and move on to the next. You will learn faster at the noob level doing it this way. Also, seek criticism and don't get defensive, also easier if the project is short and you're not being a perfectionist with it. Your goal is to figure out what you like and what you wanna do with it in the future.

t. maxfag who works "in the industry"

>>633907
>Keep projects short so you can do more of them, and don't agonize over shit, call it "good and done" and move on to the next.

I wish I had this advice framed on the wall years ago. Falling into that habit of perfectionism spiral is way too easy. Same applies to 2D art.

>>633818
For modeling I started out with VisCorbel's furniture modeling tutorials (just get them off CGPeers, I don't think they're being sold anymore), then Grant Warwick's Hard Surface Essentials video on Vimeo (IIRC he has released a full course since).

Although somewhat oldschool, the methods in Grants video in particular are pretty much everything you need to model 99% of hard surface assets, after that it's all down to how much you practice. I did pic related about a year after I started.

>>633819
What's a good youtube channel on max?

>>633920
But those videos are 8 years old. Wouldn't it be confusing for newbies to watch tutorials on outdated software?

>>633927
The modeling toolkit in 3ds Max hasn't really changed all that much within that time. All of the techniques used in those videos still work, and I still use them all the time.

Out of all the things that were added to the 3ds Max modeling toolkit since 2010, the only one that I commonly use is probably quad chamfer, and even that one doesn't really change the way I work, it just speeds things up a bit.