Great 3ds max youtube tutorials

theelementslayer has some great 3ds max tutorials, the one which helped me transition from hammer to 3ds max is this video that goes through the process of making a wooden chest then UV mapping and importing the 3d model in to Photoshop for texturing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q8M-OTiNxk
Part one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUl186h44m8
part two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPBYFFCZr0

Tbh experienced hammer users will be able transition to 3ds max, the interface is intimidating at first but you wont need to learn all of the functions  

Check out his series here
https://www.youtube.com/user/theelementslayer/playlists

http://blog.sailairstudios.com/

If you follow this tutorial a quick way to hide parts or elements of objects is to use the hide selected / hide unselected button circled in yellow, this makes it much easier to select parts that are obscured by other faces, use with caution and be sure to click unhide all when your done.




When you need to select faces for the UV editing part you can select by element, just click the white box that is circled to switch on/off, theres also one in the edit UVW window.

UV unwrap almost done.

Once the model is unwrapped the texturing can be done in photoshop with 3D mode.