Computer Graphics Bulletin Board

I would like to use Autodesk Maya for 3D modeling. Before I go and spend about one-thousand dollars, what should I learn before buying this program. Should I learn programming languages like C or C+?

If your gonna learn a programming language learn C++, its not C+, lol!
If you wanna do 3D Modeling programming will not help at all...
A free program similiar to Autodesk Maya is Blender... its complicated but you can use it... it is open source and written in Python so if you are interested in both modeling and programming Python might be better to learn so you can adapt Blender.
But, programming and modeling are completely different...

no thats not necesesary you should start whit 3Ds max studio and try not to buy the program first download the demo version and see some tutorials and learn some tips and if you liked buy the program.

Autodesk has trial versions for Maya and its other softwares. You might want to download them for free to play with them a lil' bit.

You do not need to know C++ or any programming language to learn Maya. But when you go deeper, you might want to learn MEL and PYTHON scripting

Glad to know a Maya user.. soon to be!!!