Hey my name is Dre, I have tons of story ideas and would like to make an animated film in my free time. I have Bryce, Poser, Blender, and Photoshop. Would all of these programs be enough to start and complete a project? If so, could anyone tell me which ones will work best together or which should be dedicated to certain tasks. Any info will be much appreciated.

Thanks, Dre

yes, they will be enuff. poser by itself is enuff, but an unedited poser animation will be poorly received. I don't use bryce nor blender, altho I have 'em. I think they were (or are) freebies at some point. the real problem is not the software. it's a combination of the content used and the talent between keyboard and chair. as you'll learn, the bryce/poser community is driven by new content, and many of these users spend $,$$$ per annum on content.

So does this mean that content from bryce can imported into poser? My main issue is when you import poser figures, the hair looks like a big plastic wig. The second issue is the fact that if i were to do a green screen effect with poser, will my characters still be able to walk around the object for my sets in bryce?

Attached Link: http://www.thebest3d.com/#Special

if it's also to contain animations you might want tools to edit videos and animation clips, image sequences etc... and apply post work fx, filters like adding lens flares post mortem, adding snowfall, rain, rising bubbles (underwater)?... on the higher-end you might look for After Effects, for starter budgets perhaps Project Dogwaffle Professional (PD Pro 4) might do. PD is also a painting tool and traditional animation tool (aka old-school animation, i.e. not object oriented, but raster brush and frame-by-frame drawing oriented. It might make a good companion to the tools you already use. See some examples of Bryce, Carrara, Poser and others used with PD Pro 3 and 4 here: [http://www.thebest3d.com ](http://www.thebest3d.com) Note that there's a Halloween special from now through October 31st.

And yes, PD Pro lets you do compositing with greenscreen, bluescreen, you name it
You can composite a loaded animation (perhaps from image seuqnces or AVI file) with another image sequnce. You can also load an animation and transfer it into a brush (animated custom brush) and paint with it over other animations. Makes for great fun with clips coming from Poser (like a looping walk sequence, see the running Skelleton there)

-Philip

I can confirm that it's difficult to import some poser items into bryce. they may know more in the bryce forum. I don't use bryce. I'm not aware of anybody who has done any animations in bryce, but they may know more in the bryce forum.

if you'll do lots of sophisticated animations perhaps Carrara might be a good tool to consider.

See some examples at www.thebest3d.com/carrara

My final question is, what software is best to animate guns? You know, the recoil, bullet shells flying every where. This is going to be huge factor in the other part of my movie. Oh and its actually kind of funny cuz I was at the book store yesterday looking at a how-to book on after effects and it basically does all of that editing stuff. So what I probably do is kepp a notebook with certain notes on a particular scene and whats to be done so that I don't forget until the editing process is ready. As far as using bryce, I have that program to create sets or whatever but I think I might use blender to create my sets; it will all depend on the flexibility of each software.

PS: Thank you all for sharing info with me, its all very much appreciated.

Attached Link: http://www.auroratrek.com

If by "film" you mean with changes of scene, dialog, sound, etc., you'll want a real video editing program like Premiere or Final Cut pro.