>I know there are many different modellers, even for Linux. But what I'm
>looking for is something similar to Poser or what you see being used for
>Computer animated movies where you can define a model from a skeleton with
>mass and flesh for posing and moving purposes which can then export the
>results on a POV-Ray friendly format for rendering.

Gosh, I think it is hard to find something like this. In fact, I searched
for such a program some months ago, but I found nothing suitable. So, I
resigned and bought Poser 4.0 for Windows (which was quite cheap, though).

>Most of the modelling tools I have seen work with meshes or NURBS but these
>do not lend themselves to the types of poses/motions I am looking for. Does
>anyone know what I'm talking about, and better still can you recommend
>something?

The big problem comes from the way Poser handles rotations and other
transformations. From what I've seen in one month of use, Poser knows about
the human anatomy and lets you only to choose "realistic" moves for your
characters. For instance, if you try to pull down one arm too much, then
the character's back will begin to bend in order to "follow" the arm.
Implementing these features in a computer program requires a deep study and
a good knowledge of anatomy. This is probably the reason why Poser is
unique.

Regards,
  Maurizio Tomasi.

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