Quote - I don't know if this will help, but we host a set of Blender tutorials designed for complete newbies.  It covers how to do the same things in two of the apps you mention and in Blender.  Might be helpful in comparing concepts.

I just realised that I told you about our tuts but didn't tell you where they are... D'oh!

3D tutorials

I guess I got too excited in promoting skinning of Blender :-)

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