If you wanted to make a little movie using Poser characters, and could render/pose/lipsinc/ect... in any program you wanted (price doesn't matter), what would you choose? Why?

By "little" do you mean 30 seconds or 30 minutes? What delivery system: a little box on the web, full-screen video, or widescreen DVD? Just Poser characters against an imported background graphic, or a prop-filled screen with multiple camera views and complex lighting? Realistically textured or cartoon?

Good questions! Let's see... Realistic textures, lots of props and lights, multiple camera angles, scenes ranging from 30 seconds to 15 minutes, and the end results would be something that looks fair to good when played in widescreen on a computer screen. However, I'd also like opinions for TV quality DVD. Thanks.

I'm doing a fair amount of animation for video. I use Poser propack with LipSynch for the character animation, then import to MAX for the scenery and objects, render to AVi and do the video post with Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video.

I'm using Poser itself. Being a hobbyist, and not really that great at learning packages like MAX and Lightwave, it works for me. Since my main focus is telling a story, and Poser is easy to use, I can concentrate on doing just that - telling my story. I'm not ashamed to admit that I buy the pre-made stuff to use in my projects, even BVH motions. I do a fair amount of the animating and motion myself, but if a motion exists for a movement I need a character to make, why reinvent the wheel? Someone else can do it better and it's available, I'm going to make use of it! :) After I have my little 3 to 8 second AVI clips, I bring them into Sonic Foundry's Video Factory to edit and add sound and stuff. (although I will be upgrading to Vegas Video after the rough cut is done). It works for me. I am looking at a widescreen DVD release for this, so I'm rendering in pretty high resolution, which is why I'm going to the full-out Vegas Video package for those options. MAX and Lightwave are far more advanced packages, but I'm getting the results I want, so why switch?

I had a chance to do a bit of work on a system that (so far) is my favorite: a dual processor Mac G4 with a GB of memory, Lightwave for 3D, Photoshop and Illustrator for graphics, Flash and Swish for animated text, video capture via Firewire into Final Cut Pro for video editing, DVD Pro and Superdrive for DVD output. Everything worked so smoothly together and the results were fantastic. Sound was done on another G4 with ProTools. Unfortunately, no Poser, maybe next time...