How can I go into doing animations with the complete textures and the whole sheebang? When I try, I get my animation either in the white form (you know, as you see it without the textures and materials) or with the materials but seen as if you had the last round button (forgot the name, the one that looks like a pool ball that puts the pixelated textures on your models) on. So, how should I go into having my animations seen with all the pretty textures and stuff?

You need to set the full textured display mode to see textures in "display mode" animations. To see things in animations - as you would in complete renders - for example transparency maps - you need to "make the movie" in "full rendered" mode. Not surprisingly this takes a lot longer. I suggest playing around with the various options and settling on a set of techniques that match your patience, computer speed and disk space!!! :)

There's also a setting in the "Make Movie" window that asks you how you want yout movie rendered. The default is "current display settings", which isn't what you want. You want "current rendered settings", which will unleash all of the textures and transparencies.