How would you recommend I create small animated men like this: http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/dougpete/webquests/castle/animated%20knight.gif I basically want them animated in only a couple directions and then will use them as animated bitmaps on a web page... Basically I'm looking for stock models if possible, where I could either pay for the models and add clothes then animate... I think all these apps could do it but which would be best suited and would have the least steep learning curve for creating simple warrior, archer, cavalry...etc animated pics like the example above? 1. 3d Max 2. Poser 3. Light wave 4. Maya 5. Other? Thanks, rhuala

There's no "create animated soldier" button in any of those applications that I know of. If you have some stock 3d model that you want to animate, it's going to come down to which software are you comfortable animating and rendering in?

Obviously... I'm a novice at this and am just looking for a push in the right direction....

I'm a beginner in 3 of the 4 apps (never touched Maya), so at this point I have no preference (should prob include Blender too I guess)... I'm like a stream of flowing water, and like many here I would assume - I'd like to take the path of least resistance to get to my final destination... :)

Thanks for any suggestions...

rhuala

Hi Buckeye, I'm interested in creating an animated character (not necessarily a gif) as shown in the link:

http://www.gecdsb.on.ca/d&g/dougpete/webquests/castle/animated%20knight.gif

But at three different angles, so as seen here, then two more with the soldier pointing at 30 degrees to the left and 30degrees to the right. May want to also use in a program, so I would store them as a series of bitmap images that I would animate in a program that I would like to sell.

If there was an easier way you can think of to do this that would be great...

I envisioned buying or using a freeware human mesh (not creating the mesh from scratch). Skinning it with my own clothes bitmap, and using one of the programs above to create distinct movement frames at preset angles. Snap shotting every motion and animating it later in my program.

So if I bought the mesh or was able to use a free mesh, I would be using the program to:
1. Add my bitmap desired clothes (which program is best for this?)
2. Add a sword to the model
3. Move the module in steps from start swing to end swing (which program is best for this?)
4. Take snap shot bitmaps of each frame.
5. Rotate the model and repeat

I basically just need a bit of animation in my program but do not want to program all the 3d mesh moving code for it as I do not need a lot of animation and want to keep things simple...

Hope that made sense...

Thanks,

rhuala

I'm thinking this may be a good place to start poking around...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/index.php

But would still value any advice given here...

Thanks,

rhuala

This might give some tips for using Poser...
Unit making Tutorial
Not saying it's the best way... just *a* way.

Poser would most likely be the fastest approach since you don't have to model the actual mesh, do the rigging, or the animations/morphs manually. Poser would make it "turn dial a, turn dial b, etc." type of thing.

In 3D Studio Max you could always use the video post... That would render/export all of the frames for you. I know it will export to an avi so it may export to gif as well? Regardless you would have all of the frames you need. Just set the nth frame to something like 3-5 so you get 20 frames and not 100 frames. That will save you from having a ton of 'almost identical' looking images.