I'm looking for TOP-DOWN animations of activities like running, combat, falling down, standing up from falling down, etc. Mostly, I want to study the motions involved so I can do my own animations later. I just want to get an idea of the kinesiology without mounting a camera to the ceiling and filming someone doing all the motions. Something I can pause and advance a frame at a time is the ideal situation. Stick-figure or fully rendered, I really don't care. As long as it is a faithful reproduction of real motion and, most importantly, TOP DOWN VIEW!! Can anyone point me to a web-site or anything that may have what I am looking for? Top-down view motion capture would be swell too. Thanks!

I had a *very* good look for top-down animations (both plan view and the forced top-down used in some console RPGs) with no success.
In the end I bought Poser 4 and use it to render animations in 2D.
Price is relative but it was quite 'cheap' as Poser 5 was just around the corner. I believe Poser3 was given away on a coverdisk of UK magazine a couple of years ago so you might want to check that option.
Anyway, apologies if it's not what you were looking for.
P.S. I *think* PC-Plus, PC-Format and Computer Arts had Poser 3 on their coverdisks.