The best way to learn is to use the tutorials if they have them on the trial. They are fairly easy to follow. Also there is a sight call cg architects that has alot of useful info on it.

heres the link, just go to resources and theres alot of good stuff there

i asked a 3ds max sales rep what was new in v8 and most of it sounded like advanced features which wouldn't impact a new user.

technical animations is a 6 disc tutorial for max7, but pricey.

here is autodesk's 3ds max discussion forum. lots-o-heads over there.

Ted Boardman is one of the contributing writers to CGArchitect, although it's been a while since something new.

You can download several video tutorials from Autodesk. I'd start there. They even have one specifically for architecture.

For video tutorials:
http://www.3d-palace.com/

open max and hit F1. that is all the information you will need to do almost anything.

is your boss asking you to learn this on your own time though? because running a full time job, and then learning max on the 30 day trial version doesn't sound to fair to me. you simply won't be able to show him all it can really do in that time.

i'd say you could learn from the previous book also (just to answer that question).

yeah, your boss better be paying you to learn this! Too many folks right out of school are so used to working so hard for anything, they miss the fact that they are valuable and their time is worth $$.

I'd say that 30 days is nothing, unless you are dedicating many hours a day to this. All too often, a boss expects someone to make great images in no time. That's just unreasonable.

Thanks for the advice and links. I've been pushing for a 3D program in our office - so, yes, sadly, I have to learn on my own time untill he agrees on a project that we can "afford" take the loss of hours on. I'm due for a raise, so I'm going to take the new knowledge and find a another job - we only get cost of living raises of about fifty cents an hour per year in the two years I've been here... and no yearly bonus. The company is in tremendous debt from the 2001 recession and loses money on all jobs. The depbt effects every descision made. We did just get a central server - no more people having to send files directly to each other!

Give Rhino a try

if you wanna impress your boss, do some quick views in sketchUP and do some amazing renderings in max.

What is you experience like in modeling/rendering/animating? If you have never done it before thatn 30 days wont do it. If you already know how to model in another program then I would say to use that program for the modeling aspect and learn Max just for rendering. Also tell your boss that Viz2006 is pretty much the same program has the exact same setup and costs 1k less than Max.

I've been in the same boat....'learning Max in a couple weeks' for the firm.
Ha! The program is too deep for such preposterous expectations.

I purchased Ted Boardman's book and found it not helpful in architectural application. I am going to return it.

What I ended up doing was convincing my firm to hire a friend of mine who is a wiz at the program to teach me while building our model. He charged $50/hour and I ended up with a nice, cut-to-the-chase tutorial from someone who knows the applications I will need. AND we ended up with a beautiful base model that I can now take further.

I spent 2 years learning Max, and I don't even have job!
So, be happy that you have such an opportunity at all!