3 reltively basic questions
 

ok, so far, i havent worked with much in maya except basic shapes and lofting (a little bit), anyways, if someone could just answer these questions, i'd be greatful:
1. whats the best way to rotate tires in an have them rotate at the right speed so they dont look like they are sliding or moving too fast?

2. how do i make objects be affected by gravity fields

3. how can i make tire tracks in the terrain?

:beer:

1) practice.
2) select them when you create the gravity, or use Windows> Relationship Editors > Dynamic Relationships if you've already created the gravity node.
3) Off the top of my head, a layered shader with the tire track being revealed through an animated transparancy map.

Heh.. practice. :D

2 and 3 Mikey seems to have answered quite well. But I'll be a little more specific on #1.

practice practice practice.

LOL! Nah, j/k.

Basically, you just gotta figure out how fast your vehicle is moving in relation to the rotation of the tire. Set the animation for the vehicle first, then go in and set rotational values for the tire. Start low because if you put too high a value then the tire can actually look like it's spinning slowly (this has to do with the frame rate of your video card). work with a small section of animation and work up the rotational value until you get a clean, complete rotation. Then just set the same value for the other wheels, setting the opposite sides to negative, of course. :)