Animation will be pretty good. Rendering will also be very good. I feel kind of stupid talking about something that's not even out yet, but you should know about it. No demo yet on the site. Interface is less than intuitive.
Animation is very powerful indeed.
Rendering is not RayTraced, but is very good and very fast. Hardware requirements are not all that reasonable. No demo on the site. Modeling is great if you love to type. Rendering is great, nothing like a good ray trace.