I’m a beginner in Blender (I just got it a few days ago and I’m still learning the basics), but I want to get to know it, enough so that in the near or far future I can do an animation like this one:
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxX0DKE3oqw >. Sorry if you think that I’m dreaming to much… but how many tutorials, and time would it take me to reach this level of skill? Can you link me to some free tutorials, or anything free that will help me learn more/faster in regards to complex vehicle modeling and complex animation? I have Blender 2.5. Thanks for any help.
How about the Wikibook here? This goes through many basic tutorials, 887 pages to be exact… I started a couple of months ago and have learned much…
Hope this helps…
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
I was able to download this file as a pdf file… I have tried several links on Wikipedia, and they have not worked, it looks like the file was removed… With some searching however, you should be able to find it…
If you are trying to go pro quickly, good luck! The best I am hoping is to get there eventually while going slowly… 
I would even take being semi-good, right now…
First off, welcome to the community. I’ve heard that some people might still have cookies for newbies… 
Down to business. Nobody can tell you how much time it will take for you to become a “pro” in Blender. No amount of tutorials will make you a pro unless you are willing to spend an amount of time to learn and experiment. Some people, including me, fall into that pit of watching multitudes of tutorials without experimenting and learning on their own. Don’t do this. Use tutorials as a supplement to your own experimentation. I know I’m getting off-topic, but I wanted to give you that warning in advance.
Back to the topic. Your advancement will be completely dependent on how much time you are willing to put into learning. Some people try to make high-quality animations right after picking up a 3D program. Some people succeed. But they only succeed after putting a lot of time and effort into the project. It’s all up to motivation. If you’re motivated enough, I expect one could make an animation like in the link after only a year - even less possibly! But if you don’t have the time to invest, it may well take years before reaching that level of skill. By no means should you ever stop dreaming about making amazing animations though, even if it does take you years to become “pro”.
I apologize for the rant, but I think it is helpful to clear up these misconceptions about Blender and 3D as a whole. As far as tutorials, here’s a small list of nice sites:
http://www.blenderguru.com/
Again, sorry for the wall of text. I just hope it’s useful in some small way. :spin:
-FD
Here’s the link to the pdf version:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/en-labs/8/80/Blender_3D-Noob_to_Pro-_Beginner_Tutorials.pdf
I’m learning to, so we’re on the smae boat
These books have helped me:
Beginning Blender by Lance Flavell
Blender For Dummies 2nd Edition by Jason van Gumster
You can get them from Amazon.
I also joined Cookie Citizen at: http://www.cgcookiecitizen.com/
This is well worth the little bit of money you pay for it.
I’ll add that you shouldn’t only use Blender in the objective to become a pro; also have projects that you can do with your current level of skills, so you can have fun and see results even if you don’t yet master everything. It keeps the work interesting and you learn extra tricks that you can’t all find in tutorials.