mate, really you need a basics tut, or a book called 'foundation' released by maya/alias/autodesk?? whatever whoever they are now??

if your serious about maya, this approach to the basics, asking on SM, will take forever.

if you get the foundation book, there are differant ones for maya 6 through to 8, as far as i know though, but the basics are the same.

invest in that and you will learn more in one week than trying by correspondance through this medium than in 6 months, but if you prefer the company, up to you?

if you do not know how to create a project then really, get that book and follow Simon's advice because that simple way of creating a project he has descibed (via one of Kurt's free tuts i should imagine, and if you download just one of the free tuts too, well all answers about creating a project is answered there and then) is ommitted from the book, the book does everything the long way (instead of hit defaults it tells you to type in every folder in 'edit project' before 'set project', and thats a drag but at least you know what it is all about).

show us the results when done, t?? you will get a lot of advice that way.