We will go through almost every step of making this scene in final render in this tutorial. http://www.cgonlinetutorials.com/tutorials/modeling-tea-cup-part-one.h...
this is a Free Maya video tutorial by cgwhat on how to model a Star Wars Hailfire Droid really cool from start to end but free http://www.cgwhat.com/tutorials.htm?tid=26
In this tutorial you will learn basic modeling and UV mapping for a cigarette box. http://www.truecg.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Ite...
Maya 8.0 for the modeling (polygonal) and Mental Ray for rendering. The lighting is given by an HDRI probe and two lights. http://en.9jcg.com/comm_pages/blog_content-art-158.htm