Either maya or max, 3dbuzz has great intro with 3dmax they are making AT-AT and its tons of fun and with maya they are modeling socom, to watch it you just need to register for free
I personaly have red introduction to maya / max, big fuckers but covers all (modeling, animation ect) anyways it was good read and you can skip all the not wanted shit
Had never watched that video until today. Good stuff. Learned a couple of things about topology and easier methods of cutting into surfaces. 
+1 blender can go eat a dick. you never use blender in a production environment, just like you would never use gimp.
my opinion anyway.
I understand what you say; but for how it is structured, would it be good enough to learn modeling basis?
(Aside from the fact that Autodesk is quite generous and has very nice student licenses compared to Adobe.)
I was thinking to try it myself.
Anyways, being free and multi-platform, I'd think it's perfect to make small assets to use in community maps or even to work on a small-mid sized indie project.
On this regard, Valve's initiative doesn't come much as a surprise... I am wondering if they are going to switch production or at least create platform-agnostic tools for Source 2 (so you could use 'em also on SteamBox).
Quote from ForbiddenDonutDisplay MoreFinding tutorials on straight texturing is a little more difficult because, often times, it goes hand in hand with just proper reference sourcing and good painting techniques, which are generally more vague than simply "model a so-so tutorial."
Get a free account at CGTextures and use it religiously for photo-sourcing. Avoid the temptation to just use the unmodified textures - you should try picking specific detail from them (ie I like the color from this metal sheet, and the detail from this metal plating) and then work in layers to achieve something that matches what you wanted.
Also not a bad idea to try straight hand-painted texturing first with no photo-sourrcing. Gets you in the habit of learning Photoshop brushes and how they stroke. If you have any friends that work professionally in art or are art students, ask them for a copy of their brushes. Photoshop's default set is sorely lacking.
This was a pretty good starting point for me:
oh man that second tutorial is beast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im so gonna do that
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I'm also interested in learning modelling, so I searched a really basic tutorial, here's the result 
[Blocked Image: http://users.telenet.be/gus/dresser.jpg]
It looks nothing like the one in the tutorial though, lol. I couldn't find a lot of things in 3DSMAX that were explained in the tutorial, guess it has gone through a lot of updates since the tutorial was posted.
[Blocked Image: http://moon245.3dtotal.com/admin/new_cropper/tutorial_content_images/900_tid_p4final.jpg]
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