Well, if you want to animate characters then you can try Blender. It is free and loaded with the tools for 3D modeling, sculpting, texturing, rigging, animation, composting, rotoscoping, physics and fluid simulations. Even the professional use this program too.

Blender Downloading Link:

http://www.blender.org/

Blender Free Video Tutorials Link:

http://www.blender.org/support/tutorials...

Blender Manual Link:

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2....

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By the way, animating characters is not an easy job.

Well.

In dota 2, they wrote their own program that animates their characters.

So... good luck with that.