Looking for animation program

[sjsl]

We are trying to find an animation program for the landscape that allows wind, water movement etc, trees blowing in the wind.

Thanks

[sfaust]

I know that 3dMAX will do those things. Also lightwave, Maya, and others will do this. I know there are people here that can give a good comparison, but I've only really worked in MAX, FormZ (which will not do these things), and Revit, so I really can't compare. I know Rhino is another popular one, but I don't know it's animation capabilites.

[Chunk]

Max is our choice as well. To bad there isn't a plug-in to bring Revit's .rvt in to Max....yet!

[Andre Baros]

I don't know what sort of schedule you have, but to do a good animated environment in Max is a serious undertaking. The results can be amazing (for examples see several major motion pictures)... there are however several dedicated packages for just such tasks out there. I don't have any experience with them but packages such as Xfrog, natFX from Bionatics, Dreamscape, Speed Tree, World Construction set, VistaPro, and Bryce come to mind and may be worth investigating to find a solution at the level you seek.

[sjsl]

Thanks guys this will help a lot. At least we can get some info from these packages