Hello
QUOTE
I am very very NEW to maya. Actually, I am very new to the hole 3D world. I have only bin working with flash cs3 for the last 6 months.
In that case maya may not be the right choice, but if you have it, keep it. First of all you have to get the idea of how 3d works, what it is, and how it's made in general, then familiarize yourself with maya's UI, play around with buttons...The most important thing is USE GOOGLE. and that's what brings us to your next question...
QUOTE
I just got maya 8.5 2 days ago. So, does anyone knows where to find great newbies tutorials?
GOOGLE!. There's no other place top look for them really, and if i was to tell you a good tutorial i would go and look for it n google myself, so i suppose you are fully capable of doing it too. If you can't do a things as simple as googling for stuff you need, you don't really even wasn't to start getting into 3D.
QUOTE
I really would like to create my own little avatar to start with
That sounds like a great thing to start with!
QUOTE
Can I draw my own avatar in hand first, and then scan it in, and give it some nice rendering texture?
If you are asking something like this, i must ask do you really know how 3D graphics work and what it is? Yes you can make something out of something that you drew and scanned, but you can't just scan it and "render it with textures".
Before that you would have to go through the process of making a 3 dimensional model of your picture by hand (bacause your pic is in fact 2d)
QUOTE
My second question is a bit more advanced. Can maya 8.5 work with a digital camera, or do I need some extra extensions program? When I say work with the camera, then I mean, if I have shoot a small film with my camera. Can I the make some 3D effect on the film using maya? For example like, making a bullet coming out of a gun?
You can make whatever graphics you want with maya (yes, that includes the bullet, actually The matrix special effects were made using maya...and many other movies as well)
Still to get the graphics into your movie you do need a second program. For still pictures photoshop or gimp(free), and for videos Adobe premiere, after effects, or virtual dub(free).
If you ever encounter problems, and surely you will, first check maya's documentation (F1), then try and search for the answer on the internet, finally, if everything else fails, you can always ask here...Good luck