I have been working on animation in Carrara for less than a year and wanted to know what software can I purchase where I could make animation shorts. Such as adding sound, editing separate animations together and so on. Any information would be helpful. Oh, I work on a Mac system. Thanks.

Check out I-movie, although it's a little difficult to import quicktimes into. (Apparently it's designed only to import video off the fire-wire, and not open other .mov files. There is a workaround I read about somewhere, but I don't remember the details of it.) You could check in to Final Edit Pro, too. I know very little about that program; it's a Mac Only software package. Of course, there's Adobe Premiere which is pretty expensive (several hundred dollars) but will do just about everything you could need for editing. Adobe AfterEffects works pretty well for assembling animation clips and adding sound, although it's a bit odd for getting rhythm going in editing. AfterEffects does a whole lot more than just assembling clips, though; it's often described as animatable Photoshop and is very complicated. For a simple solution, I'd look for something like VideoWave or VideoImpression -- I don't know for sure if they're available for Mac, but they're easy to use and relatively inexpensive. (I actually saw VideoWave II for sale at CompUSA for free (after rebate).) Hope this helps!

Quicktime Pro is a good cross-platform alternative. It's cheap and easy to use. If you want to add sound, you just drag the selection triangles around the music you want to use, copy it, and then make a similarily sized selection in QTPro, and say 'Add'. You can also copy and paste video clips of different formats into your Quicktime movie. Also, Quicktime MOVs are about the best compression you can get, and you can edit the compression style to suit your needs. You can order the serial number for $20 at www.apple.com and then donwload either QT4 or QT Preview 5, and enter in teh serial number Apple sends you. Its the best way, or so I've found, to add animations and sound together. However, if youre looking for something more complex, like transitions and complex filtering, and youre experienced with digital video editing, Premiere 6 or AfterEffects may be better. Hope that helps! Nebula Supernova Studios

You will need to purchase a new "key" for Quicktime Pro 5. The keys for 3 and 4 will not work.