I want to break into animation. I own a few animtion packages but they can't do what I need. so, I am thinking about going to something more professional. My to choices are lightwave & 3dstudio max. Which will surve me better not just animation but on resum'e? please help.

If you want to do games, then 3ds max. if you want to do commercial animation, then lightwave.

Thanks, brainmuffin, That's what i was hoping to hear. I want to break into the world of commercial animation and lightwave was looking pretty dran good. I have worked as a drafter for the past five years and by now I have gotten pretty tired of drawing houses for a living. It's time that I started something a little more artistic. So, is learning commercial animation something that I can do on my own. or shoould I be looking to go back to school?

Now that depends on a gret number of things. Do you want to be an independent, or do you want to work in a studio? Do you live close to any schools? Are you good at learning things on your own? If you want to be an independant, you can go either way. If you want to work in a studio, you should probably go to a school. If you want a good list of schools, pick up a copy of 3D magazine, or 3d Artist magazine. They have lots of ads for schools. most are in california, but a few are scattered around. Stay away from the art institutes international. I went to the art institute of philadelphia for almost a year, and can honestly say I didn't learn anything new. When you look for a school, find out what programs they will teach you. they'll have several. Make sure lightwave is one of them. They'll probably teach you 3ds max as well, maybe even a high end proggie like SoftImage, or Houdini. Now, if you're the type who picks things up fairly easy, you can go another route. Buy the program, go to a big bookstore, and get at least 3 books on Lightwave. Make sure they cover different topics. I suggest not buying them all at once. that way, you've already gone through a book entirely before you buy a new one, so you know what you already know and can find books with the stuff you don't know. (Follow?) Then, while you're working through those books, buy magazines. There's one or two that focus mainly on lightwave, and how it's being used in the industry. One that I know of is NewTekniques. Learn from them. Find tutorials online, and maybe even a forum like this one. there aren't a lot of lightwavers here that I know of, but there's got to be someplace out there that does. That way, you have 'classmates' to share things with, and learn from. That's about it. You'll learn about as much either way, although at a school you might learn a little faster.

Btw, what animation packages do you already own?

If you go the Lightwave Route, I strongly recommend the "Messiah Project" plugin suite. It REALLY makes character animation work well with Lightwave, as well as soft body dynamics and collision detection. It's almost a replacement for the Lightwave interface. And it's really not that pricy, as far as commercial packages go.