Ideal computer for 3D animation

But you're saying a graphics card will be needed at the very least, right?

Yay ninjas spilling over from the PvN thread!

I have no idea how good the animation institute's computers were at the time, but I do know that they were going to scrap and replace them for the next summer when I'm not going to be there.

PCs or Macs?

If they were PCs, its almost a given that they were running around 512 to 1 gig video cards, and around 4-6 gigs of ram.

If they were macs, the specs may have been slightly less in the ram department, more along the lines of 4 gigs. Macs are widely known to run processing programs like 3D modeling and video editing pretty well.