I started by watching all tutorials I could get for about a week. Dont be afraid of repetition because that makes facts stick to memory better. Blueprint is better for beginners because of the better context sensitive help system and because there is a bad lack of documentation on C++ programming.
I use 3DStudio for simple stuff because I have it, but that’s not a particular recommendation since I’m not a graphic expert. Any program will do.
I am 100% new to this. I have no experience, and I’m wondering where I should get started. I’m just going to ask some broad questions. What are some good programs for modeling, and making textures? What are some good tutorials for learning blueprints, and the interface, etc? What are some good resources in general?
Hi pizzajunky33! most users of UE4 recommend that I saw use Maya for 3D modeling while on making textures you can use any photo editing software( for me I use photoshop) you are comfortable with.
for the tutorials you can check their channel on youtube w/c covers almost every basic knowledge you should learn so that you can use the UE4 efficiently
Just a question are you a complete beginner in game development or the Unreal Engine 4?
The “Get Stated with UE4” documentation and video series is a good place. 
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/index.html
Game development. I’m not really looking to do anything big, at least not right now. I just saw this was free, and thought it would be cool to try it out, as I tried to get into Unity a few years ago. I stopped because I didn’t really find any of the tutorials I could find helpful. I’m hoping I can do better with this because of the blueprint feature.
I went through 3 other engines before I came to UE a few months ago. Irrlicht, Ogre and C4 engine and I can say from experience, that all engines have a lack of documentation, but other than C++ documentation, UE is by far the best documented. If you just watch the tutorials you should learn alot, but expect that to take some days. then start by making a small game. Since you dont have a fixed goal, do something small that is fun to you, like make a pac man clone or something like that and then just work step by step.
It is said that the first few programs you make in a new language or with a new software are always crap, so they should not be something valuable you desperately need
here try the UE4 youtube channel: Unreal Engine - YouTube
the “Massive UE4 Tutorial Playlist” covers most of the basic concepts of the UE4 including the blueprint feature
since you are new to game development try reading a few topics or books on basic game development so that you know what your game will need