Let me start by saying that I am an absolute novice when it comes to any 3D programmes. I have been seriuosly thinking about purchasing Poser 5 as on the surface it appears to have the requirements for a project I would like to do. That is animate childrens stories written by my wife. I have surfed the web, joined groups in the hope of finding out the animation capabilities of Poser 5, but little information seems to be available. there is an inordinant amount of information on how to dress and poes the characters ( some very nice examples). So all you very experienced user please give me some guidence before I spend my hard earned cash. By the time the software reaches me in Australia, with the exchange rate and postage it is not cheap. Looking forward to your replies

You can do a lot with Poser animation and it's probably the easiest program to use for animation. You might want to check my gallery. It's cetainly not children's animation but what you'll see is straight from Poser. With a little post work you can do amazing things with Poser animations.

Nerd

Thanks for that. I have already looked at your site. i will take another look

Also, check out the animations by Phoul on Belino.net, he does some nice work with Poser and Vue. There are also some animation demos at DAZ3D.com. In both the above, like a lot of animators, most are rendered in other programs, but character animated in Poser. Also, DAZ Studio is coming out very shortly, you might want to see what it is capable of as well. I personally have a love/hate relationship with Poser. On some levels it is fantastic, on others it is horrid. I do think Poser has one of the best animation/key-framing pallettes I've used. On the other hand, it's interpolation leaves something to be desired at times. (and the lack of multiple undo is frustrating) However, that's where tweaking comes in (editing in the spline graphs, etc.), and true animation starts. But it depends on your definition of animation. Some people are happy with making two poses at two different points on the timeline and letting Poser do the rest. These animations look VERY "Poserish" (either robotic, or with unprofessional collisions/peek throughs, or overactive (due to too much reliance on spline interpolation). But again, as far as the animation interface specifically, I think it is one of the best ... especially for animating characters of course. -Tim

Some examples of what's possible in Poser:

Hula (MPEG format, 869KB)
Disco (MPEG format, 3.13MB)
Music Box Dancer (MPEG format, 5.24MB)
Unicorn Run (MPEG format, 2.6MB)
Sham the wolf (MPEG format, 556KB)

The dance sequences utilized motion-capture data recorded from live performers and then imported into Poser. I'm fairly good at keyframing, but not that good.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1533209

what they said. Poser is a great tool for animating. No one mentioned the daz dragon animations here: (I know they are not people but you can check out the quality of the animation capabilites) http://secure.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=647 click the animation samples on the right hand side about hte middle.

Attached Link: http://www.3-axis.com/demos.html

Attached Link: Vicky Stand Up

Although Poser is looked down upon, and is somewhat limited in its animation capabilites, it is very good at the things it does do.

For example, the walk designer. You can have a figure walking in just a few minutes.