Well, thing is theats exactly the problem. Becuse your WRONG! Both maya and rat come with GREAT manuals thet describe more than 80% of all the questions on forums. BETTER tahn the avarage tutorials how the hell do you think i came here? So dont be lazy the puzle is there to be pieced up.
This wasnt supposed to be a rant but it became one needles to say ive said this many times.
Read the manual it is your best compannion (read it reread it till you get no new info from it, for your info ive been reading maya manual for 7 years now and it still gives me more). Besides rat is a serious tool for seroius users, but in many ways its much better then anything ive ever used form day one. Even whan i dint knwo jack * of how to use it. THing is most stuff is simple once you come into terms of what it is they are trying to say. Sometimes hoever it requires you to udnerastand university degree maths, or how the computer works thats all. Thais is all info you can and should get.
I never went to any school that tahught me 3d, or i did but thing is i allready knew the stuff when i got to the courses i just got the credits out of them later (mainly baceuse there was not any good places to go when i started out, i had headstart). Now thing is i did get education in advanced math that helpped me immersely. See no amount of education will replace YOUR inner drive for knowlege! Having the right course dnot make you better, havin the right struff on the course jsut makes your advances slightly faster thats all. All this info IS out there for free. Now come to thinkof it thres plenty of stuff your taought but only realize it years later, when you understand it (education does not guarantee understanding just the info, understanding comes in it own pace) Now im not sying education sucks, it does not! I could have gotten here sooner if if had a good educator, but themagain i might have lost the spark too. BUt the inner drive is something NO amount of money and education can buy.
Thing is some things are allways going to be obsciure. Thing is you guys will allways want to go whare the big boys are heading. Truly read tis board 5 years and youll see it clearly. While the problems of 2000 are pretty well solvend and documentted, people still want to start pushing envelopes on day 1. Thing is touugh the stuff is being developped as we go along, so it stands to reason a person who only wants tools taht work is going to be lagging behind (because the big boys have the next gen tool under works). Theres no way around this. TAke your time. It took me 3 years to understand what i call the basics, THEN i could go back to reading the manuals and uderstand 1/3 of it.
What it comes down to is how much your willing to work on to better yourself on areas that you dont get. You will get them its not like most of ths stuff descibed on papers or so are HARD, they are just geared to people who know fundamentals of math and programming. Its not easy, if it wa sthen there would be no point in it.
You will never have the ultimate tool at your fingertips, because when you do somebody else3 as a even better tool. And you will want that.
PS. i cant say i know any country in the world where they wouldnt teach, maths or simple programming. Tahts just untrue.
PPS. but not everyone will make it regardless how hard they try. Ands offcourse most pople quit after a year or so. Its liek playing the piano it takes GREAT deal of practice and patience. Thing is if it would be easy, soem of you would still loose it oever others. Some people jauts rae better than others. If you wouldnt loose in accessibility you would losse in inspiration or creativity. THe truly creative are inspired so it burns trough them, and scence is a very good channel for artistic mindset. Thats why alot of scientsit can couple as artist but rather few pure artists can couple as scientist!