[Milkdrop]

i would look at the major four apps firstly then choose one.

The major four apps are obviously, maya 5, 3ds max 6, lightwave 8, cinema 4d.

They all have roughly the same features except for maya is pretty advanced and has some ground breaking stuff.

Interface:
many people think that lightwave has the hardest layout. I do not neccesarily think this is true but it is rather hard at first. 3dsmax's interface seems a little tricky for my liking. Mayam, i really dont like this one at all. It seems really hard to access the most basic of all features but it is meant to eb the most efficient 3d app, after you have mastered it. Cinema 4d, i think has the best interface ever. Everything is clearly placed out and is very easy to navigate and find items.

Basic knowledge:
Here are some basic things i will shortly discuss about all 3d apps. It can be summed up as doing the moddeling of the object, then texturing it, then putting in the light sources then rendering.

Moddeling:
SDS: sds means subdivisional surfaces. It sounds tricky but it can be best summed up as sculpting. It is grabbing and dividng peices of a 3d mesh to form new areas. It is the most reconised form of modelling and probably the best

NURBS: this is a bit like drawing. You draw out the main shape and then duplicate this line drawing and modify it to form a mesh. It is summed up best as drawing.

BOOLEANS: booleans is a basic form of joining objects. This is the most memory efficeint way of modelling but can be hard in some apps.

ANALYTICS: the basic modelling functions, which have been taken away from many apps.

Texturing:

Textures: You can map textures onto your meshes by drawing out a texture in photoshop and then applying it to a mesh in your 3d proggy by parrarell mapping or cube mapping etc.

Materials: apply these to an object and they interact with light etc. You can make your own custom materials etc like glass or steel and they should interact with the enviroment and lighting. Very useful and very needed in good 3d

Lighting

point lights: the basic vanilla light that can be placed anywhere and are pretty effective when they are used well.

spot light: they can be directed to hit a certain part of the model. Much better than point lights but they take longer to render (occasionally) and take a while to place

Ambient lights: apply light everywhere you can think so no shadow is produced

Rendering: this is basically defining a camera and then choosing quality settings etc. It should thn produce your 3d model into a 2d miage, at the angle of the camera you have specified.

Well i hope this basic guide helps you when you come to getting your chosen app.