Lightwave or Studio Max ?

[ExpertKing]

I'm looking to do some 3D animation and was wondering what the best parckages were to use ?

[Tom Salter]

For animation use SoftImage. For nice pictures use 3DSMax.

I've never used them like, but that's what I keep getting told :P

[ExpertKing]

Cheers , I'll do some research on softimage.

[martingee]

Max, or more specifically character studio (max plugin), is fairly easy to get to grips with if you want to do character animation.
Softimage/XSI is a high end 3d package that is generally used in film animation and fx (some games companies use it as well i.e. Valve) and might be somewhat bewildering to the non-initiated.
It depends on you and your experience with 3d packages.
Another 3d software you might want to look at is maya, also used in film and more widely in the games industry (than XSI) again, this is quite intensive depending on your understanding.
All have good communities and support on the web.

[mid]

Maya has a "Personal Learning Edition", which is hugely crippled in terms of output, but free, if you want to see what you think of the interface. Just be warned going in that the model files it creates are incompatible with 'proper' Maya, so don't get too carried away.

What's your budget? If you're just looking to play, then you might be able to get some use out of Bryce 4, which I see is free on this month's PC Format. Bryce was originally aimed exclusively at landscape creation, but it's grown enough that you can kludge through other things with it now, too.

[ExpertKing]

I'll be doing animation at the end of this year , so a little taster would be nice.Looking at the price of some of the packages I think I will check out Bryce 4.

Thanks again guys

[Resonance]

For a good free modeller give Wings3D a try, www.wings3d.com. One of the best freeware programs on the net.

[babs]

If you're looking for a taster of 3DSMax, Gmax from the same people (and free to download) is worth a shot. I did a 3DSMax course a few years back and we covered animation in that (using IK etc).

[Crisp_Rapper]

i used to do a 3d modelling/animation course on 3dsmax, once you've grasped the basics it's really just a case of playing around and seeing what you can do... great proggy.

[Kotatsu Neko]

If you fancy working in the games industry, then Max is the sensible choice. It's the most widely used and understood. Second would be Maya, and the rest I wouldn't even bother looking at.

TBH Valve using XSI is a curiosity and extremely rare.

[SUMIRE]

I used 3dsmax, mainly because I worked with engineers, and it worked well along side ACAD, but that was a good three years ago. I think it depends on what type of animation and what environment you plan on working in.

[Gareth C]

Depends on what you want out of it and if you intend to get a job with it.

Softimage, Maya etc are hard to get in to and require lots of extra purchases to get the most out of them.

Max is a great overall package but don't like it personally.

My package of choice is Lightwave. It's fast to learn, extremely fast to get stuff produced and has an indredible rendering engine.

Horses for courses though I guess.