It's not often that I'm completely blown out of the water by what's considered a mid-range animation program, but Poser Pro 2010 did the trick. I'm not normally a big fan of Poser just because I've seen what people do with the stuff out of the box and the wooden look has never been very impressive, but Smith-Micro really stepped up to the plate not just on professional, well-made pre-loaded content but on features and usability. While it's definitely no longer a novice program, Poser Pro 2010 is worth the learning curve.

It's not often that an animation software developer approaches me wanting a negative review - or at very least, an objective one that helps identify product flaws for a fresh new program. So when Jay from NexPixel asked me to take a look at PM Animation, I was hesitant at first - until I started playing with the program. It's a valiant effort, and one that shows a great deal of promise...but it still needs some work before it's ready for prime time.

I hate snapping. Snapping to objects, snapping to grid, snapping to whatever - it just drives me nuts when I'm trying to move something around Flash and it's constantly jerking back and forth trying to snap to something or another on the stage. One of the first things I always do is turn off snapping; while it can be useful in some instances, it's one of those things I'm glad to make disappear when I can.

Well, this is certainly one of the more interesting animations I've seen. Nice original score, and an example of what you can do with simple GIF animations. It's like a time machine back to 1965. From the animator: "I'm committed to speaking out for peace. My art is my voice. I'm self-taught. If a picture says 1,000 words, I can think of nothing more important for those words to convey than World Peace." Think you can do better? Submit your work to the Animation Showcase.