I need to make an animated gif that does this...ideas?

The gif I need to make is this...

A stationary cylinder with a "halo" of numbers rotating around the cylinder just off the surface. (of the cylinder)

I am not sure if the Photoshop/Illustrator one-two punch is the best way to go. Maybe it is. Either way, I am not sure how to tackle this project.

Thanks for any ideas that you may have,

Dean

Methinks you might look into doing this animation in Flash. You could really sell the rotation by doing a little scaling as the numbers get to their "closest" point in the arc (path). Hopefully others have some advice.

You would be far better off doing this in even the simplist of 3D programs.

Any recommendations for "simple" 3d programs? (As I have no experience in any of them) I can probably get to a workstation somewhere that has Flash on it, but don't know how easy it is to use.

Dean

Byrce or Strata 3D.