Beginner to animation here. I have been modeling in 3D for some time now. I have the idea of making 3D models for animations and interactivities. Example: a short animation showing the external anatomy of an insect in 3D, with labels and text to go along with it. And maybe a change of scene from external to internal anatomy (which would be a 2D drawing, perhaps), and so on. The question is, whiich program would be suitable for this? It seems plain to me that the 3D rendering program doesn't add text, sound etc. Which software is for this purpose and what is it called? Thanks for the help! And any extra advice would be appreciated!

Poser can include text in its 3D animated renders, if you want.

Director 8.5 or plain old Flash would do it. Roll the mouse over to expose the text and animate the particular part perhaps a beetle's wings could unfold from the carapace. You could simply use dhtml in something like dreamweaver and hide/show layers with animated gifs. Lots of different ways.

Thanks. Saxon, isn't Flash the software used for Encarta's Interactives? Or is it Shockwave?

Yeh, there's a lot of confusion about Flash and Shockwave, it took me a long time to work it out until I got Director! Macromedia get confused too, Flash exports it's files as Shockwaves but Director calls it's files shockwaves too. I might be wrong but to avoid confusion (sic) Macromedia calls files exported by Director as Shockwaves and those exported by Flash as Flash files even though they're called shockwaves, and even though they share a name, a slightly different plugin is needed to play them both. It doesn't really matter too much as Flash is mostly the format used on the web so it gets called shockwaves, but when 3D Shockwaves come in, (that's the .w3d format and created by Director 8.5) things might just get a little confusing!

Oh, and just to make it even worse - Macromedia made the shockwave (or is it Flash) format open so a lot of other programs (including Poser Pro Pack) can use it. Adobe has Live motion for instance but personally I prefer to use Macromedia's Flash program to make my animations. Export as a .jpeg sequence and import. The program is a bit complex but once you've got your head around the timeline and the fact that you can have timelines within timelines you'll find many different methods of creating wat you want. Incidentally, I wouldn't go to the Flash newsgroups, those guys don't encourage newbies. There's money in this stuff and that tends to spook people. I've seen some horrible replies to posts there.

And... :o) it helps to be able to think in terms of 3 dimensions, but with Flash you'll need a few more. Each frame of an animation can have an action ascribed to it and with the addition of movies as symbols the timeline effectively takes a 90 degree turn, good fun though, by the time you've mastered it you'll be eligible for MENSA.