I opened VCarve and I'm overwhelmed - where do I actually start, and in what order should I learn?

The doctrine that works

Learn the software before making chips. Designing and previewing costs nothing. You can practice the entire workflow, including watching the simulated cut, with the machine off. People who learn the software at the kitchen table cut better in week two than people who learned it standing at a running machine.

The proven learning order

This is the sequence the best beginner courses (a 50-part Absolute Beginner video series and the official tutorials) all follow, because each step builds on the last:

1. Job Setup + navigation + selecting vectors: the foundation
2. Profile toolpath: your first cut-out (plus tabs, Separate Last Pass, saving G-code)
3. Pocket toolpath: clearing areas
4. Drawing basics: shapes, text, offset, array copy
5. Importing vectors (SVG/DXF) and cleaning them up
6. The tool database: entering YOUR actual bits
7. V-carving: the signature technique
8. Bitmap tracing + node editing
9. Then and only then: 3D (clipart, then imported models, then modeling if you have Aspire)

Do it this way

• Draw ALONG with the tutorials. Do not just watch. Open the software, pause, and do each step.
• Use the tutorial project files: open Help > Video Tutorial Browser for the video library, or download the project files from your account portal. They are free, known-good practice.
• Find the Clipart tab (panel on the interface edge). Bundled and purchased clipart syncs there from your account portal, and a remarkable number of owners never discover it.
• Free resources, in order of community endorsement: the official Getting Started series, then Mark Lindsay's Absolute Beginner series (a universal referral, now rebooted for V12), then the user forum's Tips & Tricks board.

One caveat: pros on industrial machines quote aggressive numbers. Hobby machines flex more, so take feed and speed advice from hobby-machine sources (see the feeds and speeds entries).