Being able to save and load animation is important. In 3DS Max, this can be done as follows.
1. Select the objects whose animation you wish to save. The order of objects selected for saving and loading animation should be the same, therefore it is a good idea to put the animated objects in a layer. Once you do that, open the Layer Manager.
2. Right click the name of the layer containing the objects you wish to save animation for and choose the Select option from the window. This selects all objects in that layer.
3. Open the Animation menu and select Save Animation.
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4. In the save animation window, name the file to be saved (I like to use the obj or char along with the name of the file as the filename). Click save motion.
5. Next load up the scene file to load your animation into. Again, select the objects to load animation on to in the same order.
6. Click the Animation menu and choose Load Animation.
7. In the Load Animation window, choose your file. I usually select Absolute and Replace so that the incoming animation is brought in exactly as is. Click Load Motion.