I'll send up smoke signals.

 

Oh..Production pipeline:

Involves more than just software. Most animators will flush out a storyline complete with storyboard drawings first...Then move on to character modelling (Referencing drawings)...Then on to rigging...Then weight mapping...After that, it's typically setting up morph targets for phenomes,lip syncing, face expressions, as well as muscle bulging. Next would likely come key posing to fit storyboards...Texturing and lighting last because you wouldn't want all of that memory overhead while doing all of that previous stuff. Then audio.

All af the above could be done in...say...Lightwave and Premiere (Maybe After Effects as well) without opening Poser one time. (But most houses likely use their own preferred  cocktails of particular software)

And each specialty (Drawings,Modelling, Rigging, Weight-mapping, Phenomes, Lipsyncing, Morph targets, Posing, Texturing, lighting, Sound) would likely be done by seperate people and teams.

 

The Production Pipeline is not the software...It's the Process.

 8 )

Tom

“The fact that no one understands you…Doesn’t make you an artist.”