Thanks, all! I really appreciate the comments. In a project like this you reach points where you wonder "Why am I working this hard, I've already got a job!" but it really helps to get feedback on the work and feel like you've made something that people might get something out of, whether entertainment, or even in some cases, inspiration to perhaps pursue their own works, which benefits all of us since it stretches the user base and might help drive the direction the software developers take. That, and after busting your ass for a year and a half, it's nice to hear somebody say something nice about what you've been doing! Seriously, thanks for taking the time to comment. To answer questions/points people have posed (roughly in order): Vince3: It's taken me about 1.5 years to get to this point of working probably a good 15 hours/week at least, often more. The first 8 months were occupied with writing the script, creating the storyboard, doing a "rough" animation with dummy voiceover using the storyboard images, and doing animation tests. I didn't get the first frame of actual finished animation until that August. Mizerael: Yes, sound was difficult, since it sounds different from headphones to speakers to TV etc. so it was hard to regulate. I'll need to work on that. (PS: I was recently in the town my ancestors came from: Wincanton, England, which is twinned as a sister-city with Ankh-Morpork. The town has 7 pubs. We hit them all in one day.) Ailarchendil (and others): the short answer to my methods is: I used patience! I've found that you never know what's going to be difficult--what seems like it's going to be hard, like showing somebody floating in zero gravity turns out to be easy, then you kill yourself trying to make a character convincingly bend over for 2 seconds. Software-wise, the workflow was a little complicated by the fact that I'm working on a Mac and rendering in Cinema 4D, and the only Poser Mac plugin for Cinema 4D is an old OS9 plugin that has never been updated, so my basic workflow for animating characters (Daz V3 and M3) was: 1. Record voice using a decent microphone (M-Audio Nova mic, Mobile Pre preamp, Apple Soundtrack); 2. Create mouth/head moves in Mimic; 3. Open Mimic file in Poser 5 (Poser 6 gave me problems with the old C4D plugin); 4. Animate character body movements/adjust head movements (head turns, blinking, etc.); 5. Boot into OS9, open Poser file into Cinema 4D environment and render it to TIFF files; 6. Go back to OSX, create .mov file from TIFFs, save; 7. Import .mov file into Final Cut Pro, edit into animation; 8. Add voice file/sound effects. Other programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator. Jonnybode: you can see a larger version at: www.auroratrek.com/aurora_pt1.mov Dale B: some of the added touches you describe I did consider and it is certainly a direction I could have gone. I instead went with a slightly more "serene" approach to the (part1) climax, but that's not to say that I may not revisit any scene when I'm "done" to see if I can't improve them--thanks for the suggestions. Pixelwks: I'm starting to think every animation is never-ending! Timberwolf: just go for it! As is, I got a year into this and realized I needed to do a rewrite, but I made sure I rewrote so I didn't have to re-animate anything! Neyjour: not to give anything away, but it gets worse before it gets better... Slakrboy: I was fortunate that my wife has a very nice voice for voice work, which--not intentially--but makes her a bit more of a fan of my working on this thing, since she's part of it. Trav: thanks! I may take you up on your offer--one thing I've learned is try to benfit from the work of others--3D is a community! Mizrael; I'm keen to avoid a hammering with a mallet--in fact, there are a couple bits of software out there (are you listening Kuroyume?) that should help me get this out a little faster. Pakled: I can't take credit for the Romulan ship: that was done by Sean Kennedy, who made the mesh available to all: http://www.seansgallery.com/ Again, thanks all for the comments--I appreciate it.--Tim