dueyftw, Yes, I do agree with you 100% that having skills in Poser is not what is required by animation studios. But what are animation studios looking for when they hire someone who knows 3D MAX? They are looking for a modeller to model the wheels of the cart Shrek rides in. When they require Maya, they are looking for an animator. But the job you get applying for those adds will be to animate Shreks' eyelash in scene 17, frame 2007 to 2340. Is that what you want to do? To give an allegory (I hope that's the right word, lol): If you have a degree in Web Design, you may get a job at a Web Design company running maintanance on a big website. But program a big website independantly, on your own, and make it succesful, you might get hired to program a big website, whether you have the qualification or not. I work with film animation companies, and they are sick of hiring people with all sorts of degrees and qualifications who can't actually do the job. So now they just search the web, and forums like this, and look for people with natural talent, and the desire to learn, and they train them themselves. As the examples above show, a lot of people get jobs because of what they can do, not what their qualification says they can do. I will give you an example of how to get a job. A friend of mine in South Africa heard that a movie was being made there called "The Ghost and The Darkness", with Val Kilmer, etc, about two lions that killed 130 people in 1900 sometime. He turned up on the set with a full latex model of a black African tribesman from that time period, complete with a stomach that could be ripped out, entrails and all. He wandered around the set the whole day, until the director eventually called him over and asked him who he was and what the model was for. He explained how the model worked, and that they could use it for scenes where the lions kill someone. He got the job doing all the latex effects for the movie. He was sixteen!!!! He has since worked on Aliens, two Disney TV films, and various other movies, TV programs etc. He didn't even finish high school, he has no qualifications, but he can DO, what is what people want to see. So the point is this: If you want a job, with long hours and low pay, study Maya. Anybody who can follow a tutorial can learn to do this. If you want a career in animation, learn to animate, and show your talent. Knowing how to animate, and knowing how to use Maya are not the same thing. Knowing how to animate is knowing how to make things look "right", no matter what software you are using. Knowing how to animate is understanding movement, and "flow", and light, and shadow, and mood, and all the things that knowing Maya doesn't guarantee you know. (Remember: South Park is modelled, animated and rendered in Maya. The success of South Park has nothing to do with their Maya skills, but with their understanding of animation. South Park could have been done in any one of a 100 programs, including hand drawn animation.)

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