She is aging beautifully! Hate to say it, ('cause it looks so nice) but you may want to take a bit of the shine off that awesome shell, or maybe hit it with a little wear? Markd

I'm not a user, but from what I've seen, it works off the hotpoint of the object, not the facets of the object. So you would need to make a group of something (target helpers?) that defines the shape of your skiff to use as a deformer. Does that make sense? markd

Did you try the Spike modifier?

Ah! I misunderstood. I thought you were talking ONE section. The transparency idea should work ok- although the rate may change some as the angle of your line does, depending on how you rig the shader. If you have Akuro's Potentializer, that would do the trick nicely (use a sphere to deform a plane permanently, shade the plan based on elevation. voila!) Markd

You could also try a cylinder with a couple of bones in it- move the bones, let the cylinder deform. Markd

I'm pretty sure you can do it by grouping, if that works for your flow. . . I made a spaceship once where I booleaned out all the windows at once. . saved the hull, save the windows separately in case I ever wanted to do it again. Markd

Iridescence and Translucency can be somewhat simulated using shoestring shaders. . (plug plug ;-) http://www.des-web.net/shoestring_graphics.html markd

Did you try Toon? DCG has a new-ish plugin if toon doesn't quite cut it. http://www.digitalcarversguild.com/ Markd

Well, you can animate it right in the spline modeller, right? You could also do it with an animated shader. . . Markd

Whether he has a degree or not, I know I don't want him hitting me! ;-) I like it. Will you be publishing on the web, or in print? markd

Are you using a projection mode? I have a vague memory that some of the modes did stuff like this- I thought I had a link at home, but now that I'm here, I can't find it. Can you move the map with the transform tab? (CS4) Markd

It might be slipping by if C4 is feeling stuttery. . I don't do anything to the objects- just go to the view menu, and check Use Collision Detection. Then grab those handy-dandy new manipulators and drag the group down. Should work ok with the group closed (or it did for my simple two-sphere test ;-) The align tool is in the edit menu. Select the stuff you want to align (plane first, then group, otherwise you move the plane to the group). On the align popup, where it says Hotpoint, pull it down and switch to min. Select the Z axis, unselect the y axis, click OK. Markd

Collision detection isn't tied to physics- it shouldn't matter about the materials. You aren't using physics, right? Hmm. Only thing I see is that the "stop" when you strike a plane (as opposed to, say, a cube) is pretty brief under CS4. As you drag down, you'll get a little hitch, you need to stop dragging right there or you'll pull through. Markd

1. Align from the edit menu (z axis only, have to experiment with the max/min settings to get the correct one) 2) Use collison detection, and pull the objects down manually. 3) Physics will work. . . you'd have to do your start over thing though- maybe just slide up the beginning of animation marker. Would take a while to enable phys. for all the objects. . . Personally, I'd probably do 2. Or you could start over and use Julien's Replica plugin. ;-) Markd

I like the cgtalk one better too- it seems like it is crisper- I wonder how much of that is the size of the image though? I do like the golden look- implies to me that it is close to sunrise or sunset. Markd