Best 3D Animation Software Reviews

Even the best 3D animation software can seem difficult at times, so let’s take a look at a few of them. Firstly, you should check out the level of tutorials for the software. If you choose wisely, you may not need to read this!

“SWiSHmax” has everything you need to create stunning interactive Flash animations. You can create shapes, text, buttons, sprites, and motion paths. You can also include more than 230 ready-to-use animated effects including explode, vortex, 3D spin, and wave. When you are done, preview your animation inside SWiSHmax without launching a browser, and live editing lets you make changes while the animation is playing. You can create your own effects or make an interactive movie by adding actions to objects.

“Easy 3D Objects” is intended for creation of 3D animations and illustrations. Areas where you can apply Easy 3D Objects include: making 3D GIF-animations; making 3D banners; making 3D illustrations; presentation materials; in the development of creative imagination. The program features include adding to 3D scenes by the following types of objects; dummy cube, sprite, plane, disk, cube, frustum, sphere, cone, cylinder, annulus, torus, arrow line, space text, mirror; you can edit the parameters of objects; rotate and move objects and groups of objects; fill objects by color or texture from BMP, JPEG files.

“Realsoft 3D” is a fully featured modelling, rendering, animation and simulation package. It introduces global illumination, multi-wavelength ray-tracing for accurate spectral caustics and other optical effects and sub-surface scattering for realistic human skin shading. On the animation front there is a full range of tools available from easy keyframing to event driven nonlinear animation support. Realsoft 3D is a complete solution for high end 3D-production at a low price.

“Effect3D” is a powerful editing tool that lets you create professional looking 3D objects, add animation and use a wide range of 3D effects. Effect3D’s Power Wizard does the work for you. Effect3D can also create dynamic 3D models by RTS animation so models can move back-and-forth, float, or rotate. There are over 500 models that are cleverly categorized for easy browsing and with over 70 behavioral Bio-Morph animation’s to choose from.

“3D GIF” Designer produces animated high-quality 3D pictures, titles, banner ads and buttons for your Web page or for a presentation. You can create animations from your own pictures (JPG, GIF, BMP, AVI) and easily add 3D text and shapes. The sprites technology enables total control. For quickly getting started, design your own animation from over 30 professional templates (banners, buttons, logos), and then save as animated GIF or AVI movies, or as set of JPEG or BMP files. In addition, 3D GIF Designer allows you to animate sprites with several effects such as Swing and Rotate.

“Stereogram Explorer” is software designed for creating high-quality hidden 3D graphics, also known as Single Image Random Dot Stereograms (SIRDS) or Single Image Stereograms (SIS) known from the “Magic Eye” series. Stereogram Explorer uses advanced algorithms and can also perform rendering. The main features include a user-friendly interface, support for many file types including GIFs, JPEGs, PICTs, and BMPs Import 3DS (3D Studio) models.

“Pro Motion” is a bitmap editor and animation package, ideal for creating pixel precise animations, images or icons used in games or Flash applications especially for handheld systems like mobile phones, gameboy, PDA, Pocket PC and similar. It has a huge number of functions, tons of tools including color cycling, onion skinning, masking, symmetry paint, magic wand, tile painting for “infinite” textures-bitmaps and “standard” functions like line, curve, box, circle and fill (pattern, gradients).

MotionStudio 3D from Coral – Get all the 3D text, graphics and animation tools you need to make your movie epic. Generate 3D graphics, titles and animated text using hundreds of presets make it fast and easy. Use high-end particle effects, add realistic motion blur to moving objects and make or import 3D models to embellish or animate–all in real time. When you’re ready, export to Corel VideoStudio Pro X4 or your favorite video-editing software for further web or video production.

This is available as a download which cuts the costs considerably. The main features include 3D titling, motion graphics and effects, easy-to-use 3D titling and text animation, the ability to create high-end effects by adding fire, snow, smoke, starfields, explosions and other phenomena with MotionStudio 3D particle effects. There is also a high-speed preview option, realistic motion blur as well as 3D effects that include particles, video textures, fire and more.

Anime Studio Pro 8 is a well respective piece of animation software that has gained quite a bit of respect. It is listed currently at just under $200 but you can get it for half that if you look. You will find it an ideal tool for professional artists and animators looking for an alternative to tedious frame-by-frame editing. You can make your own characters, objects and scenes using powerful vector-based drawing tools; instantly convert existing drawings to vector art using Automatic Image Tracing; point-and-click to attach bones to your characters for easy manipulation; speed up workflow using simulated physics; formats including NTSC/PAL D1/DV Standard and Widescreen; HDV and HDTV 780p and 1080p; AVI, MOV, Flash, and more.

Poser Pro 2012 allows a fast start-off the blocks with its drag and drop characters to help you create 3D scenes with lights and cameras. You can customize characters, photos or use the face shaping morphs to produce unique characters quickly. Poser uses the FirePly rendering engine and a flexible Node based material system to transform 3D scenes, cartoons or sketch style images and animations. You can make your character walk or talk, throw a ball or dance. There seems to be a lot of thought gone into this latest edition of Poser Pro so it is also worth a look, but at around $500 you would expect a great deal of features.

Moving forward to the more expensive packages, such as Maya and 3D Max…

Autodesk Maya 2012 animation software (link includes — Includes one year Autodesk Subscription) has comprehensive tools for animation, modeling, simulation, visual effects, rendering, matchmoving, and compositing on a highly extensible production platform. Suitable for films, games, television, advertising, publishing, or graphic design, Maya offers state-of-the-art toolsets, combined into a single affordable offering designed to help meet today’s demanding production requirements. Although it’s certainly good, the fact that you can get a video tutorial at an additional cost of $99 when Maya itself costs $3495, certainly indicates it’s a serious piece of software with that hefty price tag for the home user. So be sure this is what you need before you buy.

Personally, I think I’ve saved the best until last… Illusion Mage. This software pretty much does what the $3000+ packages do but at just $47! Read an independent full review of IllusionMage by visiting www.illusionmagespecial.com or simple go to the official web page by CLICKING HERE.

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