tinas autistic nephew is going to collage in september, he's doing multi midia and photography, he realy wants to learn 3D so i pointed him at blender, what will he realy need to learn 3D after blender has out lived it's use?
i can give him PS7 or PSCS2 and so many dreamweaver, flash and Illustrator programs to play with over the summer months, but will he eventualy need Adobe CS4 masters collection?

I am taking Multimedia Design and Photography.

We use 3DStudioMax as the 3D program.
Other programs we use are InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, AfterEffects, Acrobat, Premiere, Flash and Dreamveawer.

My school here in Norway work together with schools in England and Australia, and I am ending up as a Bachelor. I am not sure what American Schools do.

Autodesk Maya is the industry standard for movies, entertainment, and special effects.
Autodesk 3D Studio Max is the standard for the gaming industry.

Depending on what his end goal is, either of these is what he should be learning.

I'm on my degree doing multi media graphics, my group have been learning on Cinema 4D it's a good program to learn all you need to know about 3D the learning curve is easy and is pretty steady as you go it does get complicated later on when animating in Maxon Cinema 4D 10 when it comes to rigging skeletons and such but as a modelling starter i reccomend it as it has compatability options for Maya and Studio Max

Being autistic you will need a program he won't get too bored with, and something that doesn't go from a gentle walk to a mountain climb.

If you start him on Maya the learning curve goes easy... getting a little harder... omg what it this s**t where as learning the same stuff in Cinema 4D is straight forward and the principals still apply to S-Max and maya.

If you wanna see what you can do in a few months of learning check out my animation of a fully rigged robot playing a little song i wrote.
youtube channel (/fredb3)
it's called tab-o-matic

hope this helps.

If he goes through his school he can get the the cs4 pack for a few hundred.
I forget what Maya is but I am thinking it is a few hundred also instead of thousands. Mine was covered by Federal Grants and scholarships.

no idea about the technics, but sounds like an interesting idea! will we see some of his work anywhere?

Have you seen this? They say you can download free trial version, looks like a good way to get your feet wet with animation.

http://www.reallusion.com/crazytalk/

It would depend on how far he wants to go with 3D.
Unless 3D will be his career, I would recommend sticking with Blender. It will allow him to use 3D in small or large roles within a smaller studio or in conjunction with other types of media without paying huge license fees.
Even if he is going into 3D, learning Blender would be very helpful, because it will not only greatly enhance the speed of learning the other softwares, it also outperforms Max and Maya in some areas.
And as far as Blender "outliving its use", I doubt that would happen, unless he will be working in a large studio using only Maya. It is a very powerful program, and, with any other media software, if you learn to use it, you will get really good results.
These are a few things done mainly with blender:
I think this is all blender:
http://www.kajimba.com/

I think Maya was used for modelling, blender for everything else:
http://www.responsibilityproject.com/films/landing/lighthouse/

This is all blender, and even the texturing was done in GImp.
http://www.vimeo.com/1084537

P.S. Blender 2.5 is being released sometime in the summer, and it will be a big upgrade, and will also make the learning curve less steep.

thanks guys, i'll start him of with blender and pass on your recomendations, i have 3 or 4 huge video tutorials from cartoonSmart.com all about blender, that should give him a flying start
i highly recomend any cartoonSmart.com tutorials, the guys a nutter, but you do learn the stuff

Yeah, getting some good tutorials right at the begging is really important.
When I was first interested in 3D, I downloaded Blender, rotated the view around, and promptly quit. It was a few months before I got back into it, watched some read up on the basics, and started getting some good results.

After he has the basics and the interface down, I would definitely recommend some tutorials from Jonathan Williamson.
His tuts range from beginner to advanced and are really helpful and well done. He has a bunch of tutorials on CGCookie.com, which is a helpful site as well.

i sware by this guy, a bit long winded but as he keeps saying he dont know if he's talking to morons or brainiacs, dirt cheep tut's too,
http://www.cartoonsmart.com/3d_index.html