I'm looking at this, a dwarf appearance visualizer (in 2d at the mo), with interest, though it is on hold. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=141245.0. It makes me wonder, is the problem mostly animation, or the models, or both? Say if you we're "just" showing an adventurer walking through a village
Plucking a quote from the Stonesense thread:
Secondly, dfhack gives us a lot of information, but it doesn't give enough information to determine when a dwarf is performing an action. It can tell that the dwarf is given a job, but it can't determine when the dwarf is actually doing it.
So for example, you will never see your dwarves in the proper pose for slashing that goblin, or even moving smoothly from tile to tile.
Similarly, 3d programming isn't exactly easy either.
Making 3D models is a lot of work, and rigging them for animation is also a lot of work. However, for humanoid and quadruped creatures there
are people making and selling art assets that could be adapted for a DF animation tool. And at some point in the future combat might be fixed to eliminate battle axe blows aimed at molars. The problem would be the plethora of
other creatures in DF because right now no tool exists to take a BODY definition, build a model out of suitable pieces, and animate it.
If you'd like to spend some time learning biomechanics and inverse kinematics, such a tool would be awesome not only for DF but to
license out to game developers everywhere. A mock-up could just use rectangular blocks for the bodyparts and still wow the socks off of everybody.
On the other hand, if your interests are more in the direction of programming, get to know the folks who dig around DF's internals. DF itself knows what a creature is doing, and exposing that to DFHack and Dwarf Therapist would be immensely useful. The initial use for such a thing could be to make much, much more detailed logs as an input to storytelling utilities and fort diagnostic tools and !!SCIENCE!! projects. Eventually one of those storytelling utilities might be the after-animation tool you envisioned.