Software to create animated characters

[luakt]

I am new to Worldviz. Can some one tell me what are the best software to generate animated characters to be used with Worldviz. I find 3dsmax too expensive. Thanks

[Jeff]

3DS Max is our default recommendation as it's by far the most professional workflow. But it is costly both in terms of purchase price and the learning curve. There are free 3D modeling programs such as Blender and Milkshape that support export into the Cal3D format (what Vizard uses) but we're not familiar with the workflow and I honestly doubt it's much simpler than the 3DS Max method and probably less robust, albeit cheaper. Vizard also has good support for Collada, and I know Collada supports deformable mesh objects like avatars, so if you know some good content creation tools that can export Collada, perhaps that's a solution.

[luakt]

PROSER pro supports callada export.
Can we use this software to generate avatars for WorldViz?

[tobin]

I do not believe Poser direct exports into Cal3D. You can import the Poser content into 3DS Max, and then export to Cal3D from 3DS Max.