as a professional 3d character modeller/animator and TD for videogames and film.... Let me just say that if you're even thinking about creating a 3d character in a weekend without any prior knowledge of 3D modelling, animation, math, character rigging, and rendering.... FORGET IT :)

Creating 3D characters is long process that requires a whole bunch of knowledge related to just about every aspect of 3D graphics.

Even the simplest of the worst examples of a 3d character modelling/animation take quite a bit of work.

It's not something you learn in a weekend. Its something that requires many years of experience.

IF you're goal is to whip up a character for something you're editing... I would suggest going the 2D route. Perhaps the crudest form of a character such as a southpark like workflow where you're simply animating shape replacements and movement of "body parts"

But also understand that Animation is an art in itself that can not be mastered in a weekend either. So if you're trying to simply add something to your edit, perhaps its best to find someone that can do it, or think about how much value it would bring to your edit. In other words... Is it neccessary? Does it hurt your story/edit to not have it?

IF you are instead asking for a direction into character animation. As an expert i would recommend Softimage XSI. I've been an animation consultant for Discreet on their 3dstudio max product, I've done work profesionally in games and advertisements/film in Alias Maya, Softimage XSI and 3D-studio Max. It is my opinion that Softimage XSI is by far my personal favorite and you can try it out thanks to Softimage providing a Free version for beginners to learn with. Alias Maya also has a free learners version.

Again.... If you're looking to get into character animation, you are looking at a LONG journey ahead of you filled with plenty of feirce competition. Its very fun, and VERY difficult. 3D characters are like virtual puppets but more similar to robots, and like robots, they break easily and they need to be designed specifically in certain ways that may at times puzzle you. There is rotional math involved, complex math expressions, there are things that break and go wrong horribly and you will sit there for a week perhaps a month trying to figure out why :)

Complex 3d characters are so complex, they can be exhausting to debug when they go crazy. Even simple characters require a certain degree of complexity. You will need to learn modelling, texturing, rendering, and animation... And if you think animation is just moving parts... you should know that animation involves rigging a character. Rigging is building a skeleton that deforms/drives the characters skin. Rigging is an artform in itself. So expect to learn a lot and put a lot of time and effort into before you even complete your first character.

I dont mean to scare you away from it, but it is a very complex journey. Its very fun but its also very challenging and time consuming.

Again, if its for your edit, i would recommend you find the simplest way to acheive the effect at a desirable quality level. That may be asking someone or simply cutting out the entire idea if it doesnt serve the edit/story.

... and no i'm not interested :) Just trying to give you some background info on what it all invovles.

There is rotional math involved, complex math expressions, there are things that break and go wrong horribly and you will sit there for a week perhaps a month trying to figure out why :)

Oh, come on! It only took the Shrek team 48 hours to figure out why donkey looked like a chia pet. :-)

Seriously, I've tried animating just a talking cube in Maya. Wasn't easy as it looked.

No, it's not. :)

Depending on what you want to do, pro 3d apps might be overkill. There are several free ones out there (blender, but VERY high learning curve & Wings 3D are on my comp.) If you wanted to make a 3d face that would, for example, only be lip-syncing to speech/singing, the most "un-pro" way would be the cheapist (and easiest). You could buy a copy of Half Life 2 for $50, make your model in the free Softimage XSI, then import it into the game & rip it up to lip sync.

Really, it all depends on what you want to do, how much oyu want to spend & how much time you have.

For 2d I don't recomend Photoshop. I've found animating 2d chars a pain in it. I'd recomend Corel Painter or Project Dogwaffle (free). Both support onion skinning which is a much for 2d anaimation.

Tell us what you want to do & we may be able to help more.

Pro 3D apps are a bear!!! Amen to everything said so far.

I started with Blender 3D, didn't like it at all. It made me feel removed from what I was working on.

Tried TrueSpace next. Liked it better, but no cigar in sight.

Some research showed that 3ds max is great, but hard to learn and incredibly expensive, Maya is great but even harder to learn (consensus opinion was that it can only be learned from somebody else, not on your own), and very expensive, Cinema4D is fairly easy to learn (among these!), but by the time you get all the pieces you need you spend a LOT of money. Finally I got Lightwave 3D 8, really clicked, I got a good competitive upgrade price, relatively easy to use (in this group), Newtek is a good company, high quality output, felt great to work with, lots of 3rd party support, etc.

Those are some of the key pro 3D apps (I don't know as much about SoftImage XSI, because it wasn't optimal for what I wanted to do).

The winner though by a very wide margin for any non-professional animator who wants to do people animation especially:

Poser 6 (just out).

You can get it at Amazon for example for $185, and you can have some very very cool output at the end of that proverbial weekend. Easy lip syncing, walk cycles, etc., lots of models included, lots more available, doesn't require a graphics degree.

This is not a general purpose 3D program, but what it does it does incredibly well. I was astonished how far they have come since the early versions...

Also if you ever get a chance to do animation manually (with crayons and onion skins), go for it, it's a blast. Some years ago I did a 3 minute animated short in one evening at Raleigh Studios. Of course we were 500 animators collaborating to make this possible. It's hard to have more fun than that with your pants on!

Makes you appreciate what Poser does....

I am a Lightwave 3D user.. and I agree with what Jackie Chan Fan said.. he is 100 percent correct.. creating character animaation in 3D is not a casual moonlighting type deal..it requires a steep learning curve and lots of knowledge,patience and passion...

Mike Moncrief

I like poser for what it does - very easy.

I've messed around with Hash Animation Master too. I was able to actually do a few things with too.

TruSpace didn't work for me for characters last time I tried it. Maybe its gotten better at that. Love it for other things though. Can build some cool virtual sets with it. Been awhild since I've use it much though.

maria, I'd listen to the comments from the 3D pros. nearby. Building and animating a 3D character from scratch is very difficult.

But... depending on what you want, you might look at the Poser images at www.renderosity.com That's a big online community where people post all kinds of visual art: 3D, 2d, photos, fractals, you name it. Take a look at the Poser gallery and see if that's the kind of character you might be interested in. Like anything, Poser takes some practice to make something look decent, but it's nothing compared to starting from scratch. Poser gives you some stock characters (human, animal, robots, etc), and, like playing with Barbie dolls, you can change the clothes, morph the face and figure, pose, animate, and lip-synch with a 3rd party program called Mimic.

But.... only the real artists can make a Poser model look un-Poser.

Also check daz3d.com for the best models ("Victoria" is the best base female) and Mimic.

Best, Greg

For 2D animation I use Toon Boom Studio V. 2 with a large Intuos pad and like it very well. TBS has onion skin and lots of other very nice features that are not too difficult to learn. TBS can export animations as .swf files which are compatible with Vegas 5.

As per the comments of others, however, good animation technique does not come along at nearly the same speed as technical understanding of the software...

Best regards,

Lee

I use 3ds max. I've animated a number of characters, and I'd have to say that the first one took about a man-year to get a decent 3 minute song out of. And I didn't create the character mesh from scratch, I bought it!

For the most realistic look with the least effort, I'd recommend Poser.