3D design and animation breaks down into three different steps. Most 3D Software can handle all of them, but each program has its strong and weak points. There are standards to switch work between platforms and programs, and you'll seldom produce a finished piece in a single software packet.
All 3D work starts with Modelling. The model is usually drawn on the screen as a "Wire Frame", similar to a wire mesh model a Sculptor might make. The model can be animated. It can be attached to something like a walk pattern. Modelling is supposed to be one of the most difficult computer skills to learn.
The next step is Scene Building. You will bring the models you made together in a scene which you build on the "Stage" or in the "World". Some of the models can already walk or spin around in circles. You will setup paths for them to walk along and axes to spin around. Others will have "bones" and "skins" and you can pose them or animate them. Some are rigid, made from triangles, all joined together. You can prepare them and use them as static props in your scene. Add virtual lights and cameras. Get everything ready for rendering a movie or still.
The final and most involved step is Rendering. You create Texture Maps or Procedural Textures for each model in the scene. You then give the textures optical properties, like specularity, reflectivity and diffusion to make "Materials" or "Shaders". There are three common rendering methods: Flat Shading, Textured Shading and Ray Tracing. Flat Shading is quite crude (use it for previews) but it is very fast. Textured Shading can produce good results. It is used for most games like Golgatha, Tomb Raider and Quake. Ray Tracing returns the best results but can take a long time - from several minutes to many hours per scene.
Usually you will then retouch your rendered image in an image editing program or combine your footage with other clips and still pictures in a video editing suite.
These pages will give you a good understanding of many aspects of 3D design and animation. You will learn about different approaches to creating objects and how to build and light your scene and how to ray trace. You will also learn the terminology and some very basic Geometry. Reading and understanding these pages will help you understand your software manuals and prepare you for further tuition.
Let us start right now with a look at some basic modelling...