Looking for advanced free max tutorials

[Morne]

Hi all

I'm in search of some advanced 3ds Max Tutorials. Anything will do, as long as it is pretty advanced stuff and CURRENT. I'm thinking in the lines of:

1. character modelling, rigging, animation, (CAT?)
2. vehicle modelling, rigging animation. (Doesnt Director come with max now?)
3. And maybe some vfx type stuff. (smoke, fire, explosions, in a VRAY context, most things I find is for standard materials, that is IF they even mention materials. I mean once you have the particles animated and doing amazing stuff, how do I render it to also look amazing)

Tutorials that will be usefull for TV commercials etc.

Joan of Arc use to be a very good tut for example, but that is kinda outdated by almost 10 years or something.

Most books you buy on the subject also seems useless, as it's geared toward beginners. I mean come on! We can all do a basic walk cycle and make a ball bounce!

[AJ Jefferies]

All of the things you've listed are hugely broad subjects, so it's very difficult to just say "here's a perfect tutorial!".

There are some great free resources out there but the more advanced ones tend to jump right in at the deep end. You might not consider yourself a beginner but if you want to learn rigging for animation, you're going to need to understand some MaxScript. If you want to learn character modelling, you're going to have to learn some principles of design/anatomy...etc.

My advice would be that if you want to learn any of those things well, you're going to need to set some time aside & focus on each one at a time and if you want good teaching I'm afraid you're going to have to pay for it.

From personal experience I can recommend Bobo's dvd's for Maxscript, Paule Neale's for rigging, Allan McKay's for particles & vfx, Scott Eaton for anatomy, a number of the Gnomon tutorials (Ian Joyner's for example) for character modelling & Animation Mentor for character animation.

I mean come on! We can all do a basic walk cycle and make a ball bounce!

Ah - but how *well* can you do it

[Da_elf]

scan through cgtalk and check out 3dtotal.com there are usually some jems to be found in the rough

[sandykoufax]

Search Youtube and Vimeo

[Morne]

scan through cgtalk and check out 3dtotal.com there are usually some jems to be found in the rough

Yeh Joan was from 3dtotal, plus couple of other good ones there. Just hate their new site layout, the old one was much easier to navigate and find things
Checked cgtalk, the only "official" tut" section is under photoshop, the rest is all over the place it seems between the other stuff. Anything on cgtalk you can recommend?

Search Youtube and Vimeo

Thanks, couple of good "making of" tuts here usually, but hopinf for something in depth. I use to hate tuts that are video based, but I'm starting to actually prefer them. Anything specific you can recommend?

[sandykoufax]

Maybe you will know the 3dsmax learning channel http://www.youtube.com/user/3dsMaxHowTos/videos
If you find one channel, you can find other similar channels.
And mostly you can search using keyworkd "CAT", "VFX" or "webinar" and so on
plugin companies has their own channels too like cebas http://www.youtube.com/user/cebasVT/videos