The search for a good character animation program for a hobbyist took me quite a while. Here are some of the quotes from industry pros that I dug up in my travels: I have to agree with Martin here. I use Maya at work and AM at home, so maybe I can give it a shot at explaining the differences (hope this isn't against the forum rules...it probably is). Firstly, AM bones can be manipulated with IK controls, while having keys saved as FK. This is brilliant and is THE main thing that puts AM bones ahead of the rest! It lets you pose the character quickly with IK while still getting nice curved FK interpolation. In addition, you can lock a bone so that it's not included in the IK. Maya has nothing like this, and I've yet to find a way to set up anything like it there. Maya also had trouble with quaternion interpolation, which is a requierment for a system like this to work (haven't checked the latest version to verify this). Secondly, AM has bones as opposed to Maya's joints. I guess this comes down to personal preference, but in Maya you need two joints to create a bone. This just meanst a more messy Outliner (Project Workspace), and more to make sure is working correctly. It also impossible to tell how a single joint is oriented by just looking at it in Maya. Thridly, Maya joints have three numbers to define their rotation (Rotate, Rotate Axis and Joint Orient), which has some advantages, but mostly just confuses people and gets in the way. The same can usually be achieved by just using two joints/bones. "Thank you for your suggestions. We appreciate the thought you put into them. I feel A:M's bones are the best implementation on the planet, but they could always be improved. A:M bones are FAR superior to Maya's, but maybe there's something there we can learn from. So, again, thank you for bringing it up." "And "what is better about A:M bones?" If I were to mention one thing only, I would say "smartskin". This tends to be far more powerful then you can possibly realise at first glance - it is a remarkable technology. Maya users would die for something like this." "Ultimately, different programs work differently, and it always takes time to get efficient in a new program. For most A:M users, Maya would appear exceptionally hard to use, clumsy and confusing at the first attempt. A:M is a magical program which is well worth learning. A:M is a purer and more fully integrated design than hybrid animation programs like Maya. As with all programs tied to a solid design philosophy, you either embrace A:M and its philosophies and have a ball, or you fight the A:M design philosophies and have a miserable time."