Well Poser looks very interesting if you need/want to have that level of animation and audio.
My original idea was in response to Nukeman's original post to show that animation of 3D characters was possible in SketchUp without having to combine multiple videos to show an animated character in a SketchUp scene. Yes, I agree that doing so with tools like Animator and MSPhysics does take a lot of work.
Bottom line is that, at least for now, doing all of this entirely inside SketchUp is not really the right way to do. IMO, SketchUp is not a good tool for creating game like environments. Again, IMO, SketchUp is a great tool for doing architectural or product models and even including some level of animation as a way to present the model/product. In those environments the best option combining the model and animated characters might be a tool like Twinmotion. And even in that environment it is my understanding that the animation of the characters is somewhat limited (you can not control all aspects of the character animation).
I had planned on trying to show an animated character walking across a terrain or even thought about trying to animate a character going up a set of stairs. I think that everyone has already demonstrated that, while possible with a great amount of work, the current tools are not the best toolset for achieving something like that.
In closing, sorry for the long post, I appreciate the responses we have had in the thread. I wish my skills were better at delivering and look forward to any additional insight on the topic.
