Here's a long drawn-out answer
I don't believe it is free (haven't looked at if older versions are), you can get a free trial though... which was what I did first (so you might as well d/l it and at least check it out). When I got it I was going to go back to school to get into graphic design (figured I would get a head start; as it was an interest as well). That was when I got Photoshop as well. I spent quite a bit on the both of them, but had a great job at the time, and was doing fairly well. Those plans did not work out (yet) as I had hoped due to unexpected things with the job and on-going medical nonsense.
Right now, I find it fairly easy to do them; but that has only been for the past few units. Before that, for the others I did, I found it tough and frustrating because 3ds is anything but intuitive. The main thing is becoming familiar with how 3ds works. I am far from experienced in any aspect of 3ds; I probably could not create my own model or biped right now without it taking alot of time to learn. And countless hours of google searching has been my friend.
Involves alot of searching for tools for each game to be able to get them into Max. For Atlantica Online, I almost gave up, but found a little 100KB program that was uploaded a long time ago to some site (which was only downloaded under 100 times) which was needed to convert the Atlantica files to be usable (through DOS cmd prompt).
30-Day free trial with much time spent may get you used to the basic's of it, but a tuturial would be almost useless, since every game involves so many different things (importing, how the models are made up, what tools to use, if plug-in's are needed, applying/modifying textures, creating palettes, scene setup, lot's of NIF importer issues (if NIF's are even used, lighting, some game models cannot be used, on and on, etc).
It's taken me a long time; if you decide to check into it, expect to be bedazzled by the crazy program; I still am... most things I do are from the help of online tuturials, as I don't have any complete understanding of what all the stuff actually does.
Prepare to spend alot of time learning it; I could/can/will assist in any way, but 3ds makes programs like PSP, Photoshop, and GIMP look like Windows Notepad.
Get the free trial from their website, and look it over... just prepare yourself to be overwhelmed (there's more options and checkboxes than I have ever seen in a program, and it's like reading a foreign language
). If you stick with it, you'll eventually get it down though.
On the + side, I find it fascinating, it's like an addiction. Great seeing it all in action and come together.
3 other animations I decided not to do because they were somewhat unexciting and unuseful for civ 3.
