For the life of me I will never be able to learn blenders backwards interface. But I know a lot of people here do. This might help the beginners. It covers animation, bones, texturing, etc. I really was able to make a character with bones after only a couple chapters.
http://www.amazon.com/Blender-Gamekit-Interactive-3D-Artists/dp/1593272057/ref=sr_1_3?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285206769&sr=8-3
I bought this book a few years ago, but it has been collecting dust after I gave up on blender. It does seem viable to those that understand the interface. I know a few other programs and just didn't feel the need to learn another. If someone wants my copy, I might just give it away to someone lucky, it's not doing me any good.
If anyone's looking for a free 2D CAD program, draftsight is almost click for click the same as Autodesk Autocad and free. I use CAD and Inventor at work and draftsight at home and my fingers don't know the difference. I draw my maps here instead of graph paper cause I'm faster with the trackball mouse.
http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/draftsight-overview/
If anyone's wondering what I use to model I use Alibre because I cannot do mesh deformation modeling, I do additive and assembly modeling for a living and it's just more natural for me. So for those of you engineers out there, this might be better for you.
http://www.alibre.com/
It is identical to Autodesk Inventor and doesn't cost $6,390.00 per seat(And you thought 3D max was expensive)
Hope this helps someone.
