The studio I'm working for is exclusively using Maya: they would not be interested in seeing Poser stuff at all.
XSI and 3Dmax skills would be OK as well: Poser is just not sophisticated enough compared with the big applications - I've seen riggers set up their 3D characters in ways Poser users an only dream of and drewl at - the morph targets in even the latest DAZ characters don't even come close to what's possible in Maya, where you can set up a character where moving the lower jaw freely in space will automatically open the mouth for you in a natural way, also if the shapes are completely assymetrical. For one character, blendshapes were made for subtle changes in the temples for acting scenes in close up.

If you want to become a character animator, that's what you need to show in your portfolio. Show that you can animate using the holy twelve principles of character animation, show action stuff, show funny, dramatic staging skills, show well acted lipsync scenes (and don't even dream about using applications like Mimic for that!!). Also stay away from any sort of motion captured stuff.
Make certain yor animations work at an emotional level: don't expect to impress people with technical stuff only.
Remember that your character animation really needs to impress: you'll be competing with people that have a lot of studio experience.
If you're not particulary good at lighting or rendering, just show a simply lit character without any background stuff at all: don't distract the studio from your animation if the other stuff sucks. There will be texturers and lighters who will do that stuff next to you if you get the job, anyway. The sort of stuff that they do in the Ten Seconds Club would be OK.
On our current production there are people involved that only do character animation (some of them old fashioned pencil animators that made the switch to 3D, and have no modeling skills whatsoever), but extra skills in modeling or rigging, or even texturing and lighting, will be considered as a bonus and improve your chances of getting a job.

Don't be discouraged after a couple of rejections: learn from that, improve your skills, and try again: that's basically the only way to succeed. Hardly anybody gets a cool job straightaway at the first attempt. Best would be to get a position as trainee in a studio (preferably a smaller one, as you get more attention there), and then learn the real tricks of the trade on the job.

Good luck !

Message edited on: 01/08/2006 03:43

Message edited on: 01/08/2006 03:45