I am thinking of getting a 3D Studio for creating a game using human characters, prefably physics-controlled, so I need scripting.

Does 3D Studio r4 have any skeleton animation?

Does 3D Studio r4 have any plug-in capabilities?

Can 3D Studio Max 2 run in Win98?

Have any of you used Blender? www.blender.nl

I think it is cool, but it doesn't export any standard file formats, and does not have very good UV texture handling. It scripts in python though, and that is what my engine uses.

What kind of plug-ins does 3D Studio r2 have?

I'm not sure about regular 3d studio....but 3d Studio Max 2.0 can run under windows 98, but character studio for that version of max isn't exactly stable under 98. It's better to use NT if you can get your hands on a copy of it.