Speaking of Maya, their educational version of Maya Complete will now be free for the public. They want more people to be interested in their products and since they make so much money off of Maya Unlimited they might as well have a free version. Maya Complete Educational is a fully functional version of Maya Complete so you should check it out some time. But back to the topic... I think if you are comfortable with Lightwave, you should stick with it. Lightwave, for most people, is easier to use when modeling and since Max and Lightwave mix together so well there is no point just using one or the other.
Yeah, mattes really add to the realism of the animation and usually unnoticed things do aide in giving a more convincing natural animation. Such things as birds flying or robotic dogs falling off a ball (I hope someone saw that on our animation) just raise the bar for competition. I'll draft up a PDF sometime soon and maybe you should do the same with yours. I am submitting mine to Robby who has plans to increase the popularity of animation at FIRST so it would be helpful for such masters as you guys send one as well.
__________________
SUNNY
|