OK, I've been using Poser and photoshop for a years now, both of which I pretty much taught myself, with the aid of tutorials once I had the basics down. Now, I would really like to start creating clothes for my Poser scenes. So I bit the bullet and got ahold of 3dsmax. I've had it for a while now, and can't do ANYTHING. like, I can make a sphere, but that's about it. I also have the free Wings 3d. My question to you is this: Keeping in mind that I have never used either of these programs before, and that I am wanting to use them to make clothes for poser (although I realize that I will have to start small, and then work up to clothes) What tutorials would you suggest to get me started. Is there any advice that you wish you would have known? Thank you so much Mikachan

Books can be of great help. I only know about Lightwavebooks since LW is what I use, but there has to be a max-book that covers all the basics, just like Inside Lightwave does for LW. Since clothes are organic, I'd get started on some basic organic modeling tuts that can take you beyond the sphere. Once you get the hang of modeling you should look up texturing tuts, since textures define different types of clothing. I've heard from others that max is pretty tough to crack at the beginning, so another option is to sell your copy and get Lightwave. My (humble) opinion is that LW is easier to teach yourself than max. Either way; 3D is never easy, but keep one thing in mind; NEVER GIVE UP!!! Greets

The bundled Max tuts are surprisingly good, I also found SAMS 3Ds Max in 24 hours great to get started, but quickly outgrown. 3d buzz (www.3dbuzz.com) has some great tuts.

I like to think that I am a decent texturer as is, from doing it so much for Poser. The model is the part I'm most focused on right now. I'd heard that there was some kind of fantastic Angler Fish tutorial, and since the Angler Fish is my favorite creature of all time, I thought I'd start with that, but I found about a million references to it, yet I was unable to find the actual thing. I'll look into lightwave. The nice thing about being at school is that the university seems to have copies of every program known to man, and I have some friends in Engineering and Archetecture that can get me at least limited access to whatever they have. It's a great way to get to know if a program is really what you want before you buy!

You can also find some great tut's over at www.max-realms.com.