There are a few things you can do.
1) Go to YouTube and search for tutorials about 3ds Max. There are 1000s of them.
2) Use the official 3ds Max Documentation. It's pretty good these days.
3) Go to a site like Udemy or something and get a course. If you wait till they have their "sale" (which is very frequent), you can get $100 courses for $10-$15.
Probably the best way to create an animation is to output your project as a string of files called a "sequence." They can be JPGs, PNGs, TIFs, or any format you want. Then look up in the documentation about how to create a video from them.
Making things realistic is not a simple answer. It's what makes one artist better than another. Over time, you learn techniques for creating materials, using lights, and other techniques to generate realistic-looking projects.
It takes time to get good with Max or any complex software. Set aside an hour a day to dive into it and learn a new feature, and in no time, you'll be making nice stuff.
Rob Holmes

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3ds Max (2023-2026), V-Ray 7, Ryzen 9 9950X3D Processor, DDR5 128MB, Gigabyte Aorus X870E Master motherboard, Sabrent Rocket NVMe Gen5 M.2 drives, NVidia RTX 4090, Space Pilot Pro, Windows 11 Pro x64, Tri-Monitor, Cintiq 13HD, Windows 11 x64
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