I want to buy new 3D-software to animate ZBrush generated objects…
My favorites are Maya Complete, Cinema4D XL and lightwave.
What is the best software to animate and render ZBrush generated Objects?
Easy to load and good enought speed & Quality to render?
Are there Wip or final Anims to see?
Jack it sounds like you hav a fine arsenal there with the progs you mentioned…
From what I have seen LW has done some excellant animations. Glen Southerns had a dragon animation that was to die for and I think he did that in LW.
I have seen a few in C4d as well.
Pixolator did a very kewl animation that is posted somewhere around the forum here…I dont remember what he used to animate it though.
I also guess it would have to be taken into consideration what the animation is used for, the levels of detail needing to be animated…and most of all how much a person’s pocket book could tolerate.
I am in the same boat as you at the moment, trying to figure out what to use to animate some creations.
I am sure you should get some very varied answers on this topic.
good luck in your quest.
ron
I’m gonna take a stab here that your a mac user based on your list.
Good news is Maya unlimimted has just been announced for OSX, granted its out of most studios budgets let alone hobbiests.
I’m a big Lightwave fan but I’d say its probably the least compatiable zbrush app at the moment. And i’d say Maya is probably the best choice currently, ecspecially if u can get your hands on mental ray to render with. I’d say its most likely zbrush2 was beta tested and workflow ideas were addressed while using maya at weta. unfortunatly things are always changin… im hopin in the next version of LW, or through plugins (3rd party), which a couple free ones have been written. LW’s great rendering engine can do justice to the beautiful sculping that can be done in zbrush. As a mac user myself, im still waitin on Z2, so i have onlt dabbled slightly with freebie models and displacement maps from zbrush.
I would go Maya, but check out SideFX’s Houdini. The new version is looking to really kick some *ss ( if You have the cash that is. 
)
mmmh, we just decided to focus on cinema4D - inexpensive, lots of plugins and modules and together with bodypaint and MOCCA (for character animation) there’s not much you can’t do with it.
and you even get support in german 
i must say, tho’, that character rigging is a tad complicated, compared to MAX/character studio (dunno about maya and the others).
anyway, importing, rendering, animating works like a charm.
GuyZZ, I think, c4d is the best solution 4 the money 
(very cheap and stable 4 animations is new StrataCX too…)
You didn’t mention money, so I am assuming
that is not a criteria.
If that is the case Maya is sure to be at the head of the list.
Maya 6 in particular.
There was a recent unveiling of the product here in New York, with an emphasis on animation.
You might check their website to see if the same exhibit will be in your area.
The presentation opened with a 15 minute clip of there recent works.
Animation was first and foremost.
I am a Zbrush beginner and cannot speak with expertise on the integration, but with the exception of price, Maya would be seem to be ideal.
By the way, their support and assistance towards their customers is fantastic.
Best of luck, whatever the choice.
(…and I know fellas, they say, the best is max 
)
Choice is not important (in most best sw), but skills, praxis and love 
seems like Lightwave has the most bang for the buck… Think I am going to go for Lightwave 8.0 here pretty soon… it has everything I need right out of the box…
Plus I can run it under WINE in linux if I want to 
I use ol’ Poser for my animations. I just can’t seem to animate things as effectively as I can with Poser.
Hi, anyone knows anything about Messiah?
Any users out there?
Messiah
I’m very intrested about this prog and the price isn’t too bad either.
Jimking
Hi!
If I´d need a animation program for free I would take BLENDER (www.blender.org)! It´s a very mighty program although it does not raytrace the animations. There are tons of links to free and commercial 3D/animation - programs on my homepage www.manfreds.cyber-comics.de (text in german only, sorry). Check it out!
A really cool tip: a free and legal download of “Poser 3” is available here: http://www.egisys.de/registrations/index.php?magazine=pro7&download=poser3
I tried out “Messiah Animate 4” in conjunction with Cinema4D v.7.3 and am very impressed. I bought it as a replacement for the dynamics module. But after I saw the really simple setup of bones I never want to do that in Cinema again! One drawback is the amount of memory you need to run Cinema and Animate together…
