Anim8or Community

Make each letter a seperate object (you can make them using the text tool)

You can then put them into the scene mode and animate them seperately.

The mirror in Anim8or is just a material.
Make sure you have v.97 then in the material editor
click attributes and enter new
in the top box type "specular" (without quotes)
in the bottom box type "reflection" (without quotes)
You can then edit the specular value in the material editor to adjust the amount of reflection.

For soft shadows in scene mode create a light double click it
click advanced
check the 'cast shadows' box
select raytrace and check the 'soft' box
then change the size box to about 3 (the larger this value the softer the shadows)

I might try it but I think I'll prefer the Cryengine2 editor as it's quite easy to use. Still anything free's always appreciated.

When in anim8or press Enter and the material toolbar will appear next to the toolbar on the left. To edit the material double-click the "new" square and you'll find the material editor.
To move objects along the z axis click the move button and use the right mouse button the move a selected object.

If you want better quality try rendering with ART (version 0.97d) with ambient occlusion enabled and a high AA.

If you want faster rendering, get a new CPU or wait for a newer version of Anim8or with multithreading.

Nice I'd never seen that before, might try that myself.

You can export the model files as 3ds/obj which tend to work with most other programs, but you can't export the whole file only the models.

Make sure your using it from an edge taht is coloured green when you select it in wireframe.