CharacterStudio is an unbelievable character animation tool for ThreeDeStudioMax. It is a $999 plugin. It gives you SkeletalAnimation, but also the ability to save the skeletons animation separately to reuse it between characters. I know that in theory you can do this in other packages (how else would MotionCapture work?), but doing it is so simple with CharacterStudio. With CharacterStudio, you also can animate a walk cycle just by placing footsteps in your world. The character will then follow them. There are probably a ton of other features that I'm missing.

CharacterStudio and HyperMatter are in my opinion the two reason why 3DStudioMax is so great. Unfortunately, the base Max package is $3000, and those two plugins are another $1000 a piece. For $5k, I'd rather have SoftImage. Or, I might rather save myself $3k and get a copy of LightWave (although SoftImage is so cool).

''HyperMatter has been renamed Reactor, I think.''

''Also, ThreeDeStudioMax is managed by Discreet now, and is rapidly gaining a better groomed UI.''

''Finally, Maya has had a radical price drop, and has tons of stuff built in that comes separately. For $6k, one can get unlimited, which has things like physical simulation, fluid dynamics, cloth, skinning over models of muscles so that the muscles deform the skin, and on and on and on. A whole new ball game.''

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CategorySoftwareTool