CompuServe Messages

I would definitely, hands down, consider 3D Studio to be the best PC based modeling and rendering system (combined). While I would like certain advanced features, like spline modeling, inverse or forward kinematics, collision detection, etc., 3DS Studio is outstanding and extremely productive even without them. And the renderer blows everything else away (besides ray tracing). For raytracing there are several packages, but since I don't raytrace (too slow for PC animation production) I haven't examined them. I know Caligari trueSpace has raytracing, but not field rendering, Real3D is a raytracer, and I'm sure there are several others. Real3D supports spline modeling and raytracing. I haven't used the software, and while I have heard very good things about it, most people I have talked to say there are some major missing features for it to be as productive as 3D Studio. It is also still Beta software, so maybe some problems will be resolved before official release. John Tissavary