I'm a bit of a Poser evangelist ;) , but have to put up a cautionary word here. Poser's ease of use might actually constitute a handicap for someone who doesn't understand the principles of animation from scratch, but who is trying to become familiar with them. If your son is going to learn Maya, he will need to learn how to place the feet so that they don't slide and so that they look like they are bound by gravity and the weight and momentum of the body supported. Any program with a walkpath, IK, walk-designer, whatever, will give him a nice walk cycle for a portfolio, but not the knowledge of how to make a walking figure. Animation requires observation, among other skills. We can tell by a walk the gender, age, health, and mental/emotional state of the walker. Observation of "fidgets" will tell us a lot, too, about what each of us uniquely human. Androids never trip over cracks in the sidewalk, worry about whether their hair is perfect, limp slightly because of tight shoes, check their zipper, fondle a worry stone, or pick their nose in public. Animation is from the Latin word "anima" meaning soul or breath, and is the process of giving life to something. Any program which automates that procedure and makes it mechanical will not teach animation, but merely kinetics. Movement is NOT life. (And, yes, I've been a published columnist on this subject.) I'd recommend that your son make some flipbooks, where he sketches each frame, rather than have the computer interpolate. He will get a much better feel for how to divide motion by time. He'll get a feeling for key frames, and WHAT makes them the keys. He should also learn by this that what looks good as a still might unbalance the fluidity of the motion completely. I'd also recommend that he experiment with different animation styles. The extreme exaggeration of cartoons is done for a purpose, as is the restraint of some anime. Even if he intends to go into a particular field, he should try to be familiar with a range of styles and techniques. (17 is too young to set limits on a career niche.) A further note: besides bipeds and quadrupeds, we have the undulating movement of snakes and mermaids, the hop-plop of frogs, the waving rows of feet in a millipede (useful for multi-oared ships), the spider which tucks its legs up and rolls down the sand dunes, crabs which scuttle sideways, and all sorts of other ways to manuever across a landscape. What will he do when he has to animate an angry peg-legged pirate in a hurry? Most people walking with a crutch have it on the wrong side so that their body sways back and forth more than it needs to... not good if you have a parrot on one shoulder! So your son will need to learn to think as well as observe. Eeks, I'm getting wordy... but I'm also going to suggest learning a bit of ham-acting and role-playing. If he needs to create and animate a 1200 pound troll, it will be better if he can imagine sore knees, lugubrious tread, and deep impressions in soft earth (similar to the feeling we get walking in sand for hours). A furtive drunk, a fox in stiletto heels, or a 900 year-old witch? (And yes, my cat is vastly amused... as well as safely under the table.) The hardest creature I've had to animate wasn't the dancing satyr with digitigrade legs.. but a multi-tentacled dungeon monster. Why? Motive and personality. I could imagine dancing backwards and put some joyful friskiness into it (tail and ear-flicks), but what goes through the mind of some slimy thing getting his information about the world through suction cups? (shudder) That's part of the job. Poser is an utterly fantastic tool, but I'm not sure that it is a good first program for someone who is serious about learning the basics. Carolly