Maya used to have decent intro materials. With every version they would publish a physical manual with tutorials and walkthroughs. Most of my learning was fro

Maya used to have decent intro materials. With every version they would publish a physical manual with tutorials and walkthroughs. Most of my learning was from those materials. Honestly, none of the basics have really changed so if you could find either a digital or physical copy that might be a good start. I still find books work for me as a general overview for a brand new field (like Linux or web programming). Even though there's so much free material out there I appreciate consistency and cohesiveness of having everything covered in a book. What sucks is they got rid of the Personal Learning Edition of Maya, so getting a legit copy just to learn isn't as simple. They do have a 30 day trial. Maya's documentation is still pretty solid for reference, just not for learning, so if you're curious what a menu or button does you can find out easily. I think for learning anything new it's best to have a project like that "web-dev to 3d post" mentioned in another comment and focus on what you need to accomplish. I've also heard Cinema4d is a lot less intimidating to learn and has most of the basic things you'd want.