Quote - I agree that the animation support in Poser is sub par. I think there are numerous reasons:
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Creating a good animation app is REALLY REALLY HARD. Part of the difficulty (non-resizable windows aside) is mapping what goes on mathematically behind the scenes to an intuitive interface in the front. Poser gives you access to a lot of the guts you need to do animation - but nobody likes working with guts. Guts are messy. But for programmers they are easy - just put 'em out there and let the users struggle up the learning curve. This at least provides a powerful solution, even if it's one that's not easy to learn or convenient to use.

Quote - Yes, but that's a bit like proposing that Photoshop is acceptable written and presented in machine code, with the user having to write hex commands to increase brightness or contrast. The whole point of a usable programme, however modest, is that the user is presented with CONTROLS which transfer the usability to the customer, otherwise why bother. Software like this should provide a user interface that really IS intuitive, and that includes commands and macros for doing commonly used functions, which for instance the walk designer singularly fails to do.

It is in my view a myth that software has to be difficult to use in order to use in depth. A great example of usable software is the award winning Sibelius, which takes the drudgery out of scoring and allows the composer to get on with that skill. Before Sibelius (which is not by the way particularly expensive) composers were persuaded that no software could ever help them without learning the mechanics of software based notation, as demonstrated by scoring software prior to Sibelius's appearance. The key to Sibelius's success is the intelligence of the designers behind it, not its cost or price.

Leonardis