I'm looking for a character animation program of what the pros use. Also how does it work? Any info or direction is appreciated. Keep in mind I'm new to character animations and bone structures and stuff. -Devin

http://www.blender.org/cms/Home.2.0.html

Cool, I saw that and a friend had mentioned it. I downloaded it and played with it a bit. Do you think it's adequate to create a high quality game? Also I didn't see skeleton system. Does it have skeleton/skin abilities?

Thanks,

Devin

Questions regarding content creation are better suited to 'Visual Arts'. Moved [smile]

I use Paint Shop Pro.

Blender is capable of doing Bones Animation. A good place to start is the Blender wiki, there is also one short tutorial about animating using bones:
Your First Animation in 30 plus 30 minutes Part II

However, if you decide to use blender, be aware that it has a steep learning curve, but it is worth it :-) so don't give up early.

Blender is capable of doing artwork for high quality games (and movies). But afaik only very few (big) game studios use Blender for artwork creation. But I think that this is not Blender's "fault".

Paint Shop Pro is not capable of doing bones and stuff...

Just keep in mind that even though it is a powerful program, Blender is hard(er) to use. That shouldn't keep good artists from it, though. I've seen what people create with it and I'm trying to learn it myself.

Quote:

Original post by destron Just keep in mind that even though it is a powerful program, Blender is hard(er) to use. That shouldn't keep good artists from it, though. I've seen what people create with it and I'm trying to learn it myself.

yeah, after using 3ds max, blender is a nightmare in comparison. yet i have some some pretty good art from bender.

I like Fragmotion. Very cheap program. http://www.fragmosoft.com/ It's only about 20$ and it has lots of nice features, with new ones always being added.

The programs that the 'pros use' are very expensive, and have more junk in them them you will ever need to just animate some game models.

gamespace

I think somewhere on gamedev there's a review or even two of Caligary Gamespace.

the regular truespace programs are also nice, you can get older versions for even lower prices.
with newest versions you can do pretty much if not all of what "pros" need.