...and rendering! I think a paltform-independent skills forum would be fantastic. As the above example shows, ayone can benefit from knowing proper human proportions. I think there are many basisc skills which can be addressed, independent of a specific program. For instance, I just finished an excellent book called "Digital Lighting and Rendering" by Jeremy Birn. Magnificent. It gives information on the "basic" skills of lighting, shadows, composition, use of color, staging, compositing, texturing, and animation. It explains things I never knew, such as determining the "temperature" of light for an animation based on the type of film the studio will use, or proper studio 3-point lighting, or what specular and phong REALLY mean, or why ambient light can be very bad. Just the kind of info I'd like to share! Lots of beginners like me would appreciate that sort of thing, I think. These are