Despite a difficult name to say, Imaginemage is gaining popularity with amateur 3D animators. It's not a software product per-se, but rather a package containing a popular 3D animation engine and a whole heap of training material.

So how does Imaginemage stack up against our Buyer's Guide criteria?

Ease of interface
The software Imaginemage is based on is pretty full on and complex. Ordinarily this would earn it minus points, but since it's really the training that you are buying here, we'll let it go.

3D modelling
No problems here. The software is extremely advanced and easily able to cope with any kind of 3D modelling.

Surface rendering, shading and effects
The software can render photo-realistic images and cartoon animation alike, and does both with picture perfect accuracy. Oversampling, motion blur, post-production effects, fields, non-square pixels and more shading effects than you can shake a stick at.

Automated game creation
A strength with this software, which contains a graphical logic editor for defining interactive behavior without the need to program a thing. Advance features include collision detection and dynamics simulation within the Bullet Physics Library. Bullet is an Detection and Rigid Body Dynamics Library for games used by PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, XBox360. If you fancy dabbling with Python programming you can create even more interaction.

File formats
All major file formats and compression codec’s included.
Tutorials and training – over 6 hours of video training and 200 pages of written guides. These introduce the subject extremely well and will have you up and running in no time.

Help and support
Probably the most lacking for this particular package. Support is slow, however there are a wealth of online sources to ask questions about 3D animation that will apply to this software.

One of the top buys in the category, and well worth the small price tag.