BLender is a great program. but it tends to confuse folks at first. theres little you can do with 3dmax and others that you cant do with Blender. at least as far as I know of.
this is one of the best links I have found to learning to use blender.
https://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual
they also have some really good tutorials. anyway best of luck to those who decide to grab blender and start modeling.