About growing up with the graphics and games stuff, I am not like most of the kids out there who had their hands on an atari 2600 when they were like 4.

I did also play games of cowboys and indians like yourselves even if you are years ahead of me. Although I did get the chance to play with complex toys like transformers,Gi-joe action figures, and he-man toys ;I didn't get a chance to play an actual video game system until the age of 14 (1992) that was pretty sad when every kid in the neighborhood had a super nintendo. I started with an 8-bit nes.

Not much computer experience either. I touched some dos , word processing and then windows 3.1 in 1993. And when i was atempting to learn that stuff all the kids would just tell me . What? you didn't know that?

A man's level of knowledge and skill depends on his experiences and exposure to a given task.

If you want to learn something, Don't be awed by other's ability . i learned that quote the hard way. I was really frustrated on my first 3-d class with all of these 3-d game experienced kids were in my class. They knew and felt so famililiar with all that stuff. It was all new to me a totally alien world, I was very afraid to ask questions becuase i didn't want to be perceived as an idiot. I finished the course without asking questions to end a really frustrated course of maya.

Then last summer, I took an intensive maya class and this time I swarmed my instructor with questions, and i didn't care if the other kids were giving me the weird look " Is this guy in the right class?" In the end, thanks to asking all those questions, I finally understood the program and now have a satisfactory level of understanding of it. Thanks to asking questions, now i can download all of these tutorials and know what those tutorials are talking about.

If anyone gets a chance, Take a maya class at a school. ASk your instructor ,Ask And Ask some more.(afterall, you are also paying for it) Screw what others think!!!! Personal contact is the best way to learn, Even if you ask questions on the internet, read and have many books, "a thousand travel books aren't worth a real trip"

Social interaction is still the best way to learn any skill. I use simply maya forum ,still find it a good place to find some answers, but now i have a foundation and am able to apply those answers I acquired.