My wife's brother is in the industry. He's worked on a lot of the Blockbusters of the past 5 years. His name made it into the credits of Hellboy and Superman.

Every year at christmas time, the only time I ever see him, I pick his brain about the latest tech for animation, since its a 2nd or 3rd cousin to my own industry. I also did a bit of it for fun a long time ago, but haven't the time or tools anymore. He uses 3D Studio Max alot, but also has a bunch of other programs I never heard of. I think one is called Brazil, but I can't be sure of my memory. This past year he had a program on his laptop (the laptop doubled as a tablet) that was absolutely amazing for model creation. Using his pen, he could add and subtract mass just by touching the model. The model had a symmetry line, so whatever he did to the right happend to the left. He could create aliens in minutes.

The next step is to take the model into a program that like Max that will give it mechanics. Bones, muscles that sort of thing.

Lastly the model gets mapped with texture and color and its ready to be dropped into the virtual set complete with lighting, effects, etc. etc.

If you wonder why these blockbusters cost so much, its because all this takes a lot of time. My Bro-in-law worked for about 3 months on a scene that got less than a minute in Superman. Multiply that across all of the staff involved, and the cost really skyrockets.

-Steve G.