[Brian Jones]

the still-selected border edges can be deselected by using the Outline Selection Tool with the Cmnd key (what is it in Windows? Cntrl?) to subtract from the selection

[Brian Jones]

sure, the start time on the left of the timeline (the viewport mini-timeline) can be anything (as long as the end time on the right is something higher)

[Brian Jones]

you can only get edge details like that with beveled edges – if they are perfectly sharp like in your example there is nothing to catch the light (the lights have to be in the right place too to reflect light back at the camera)

[Brian Jones]

animating the relative position of the axis is not possible but what you want is easy, put the object in a Null and animate that. You move the object (inside the null) so the null is the anchor point at the edge keyframe that position (in the object’s coords) do your small rotation with the null (which then moves the object since the object is a child of the null) then move the object (inside the null again) so it is centered to the null over as many frames as you like.

[Brian Jones]

there is a setting in Illustrator to export (or not) the limits of the document (don’t remember what it’s called, don’t have Illustrator here…)

if you have multiple spline segments in a single spline you can select the spline and run the Mesh/Spline/Explode Segments command

[Brian Jones]

you buy (renew) the MSA every year, yes. If you miss a version the upgrade costs more and the upgrade from year to year costs more than the MSA so it’s better to keep up the MSA.

[Brian Jones]

Split would be his answer. It takes the selected polys and puts them in a new standalone object, Split does not remove the polys from the original object though (in case you want to do it again, I guess) and it leaves the original object selected (so you can hit ‘delete’ if you do want to erase the original polys). The new object with the same name is the new standalone object.

[Brian Jones]

the offset and length settings in the Texture tag are where you want to start.

[Brian Jones]

select the blades polys in Poly mode (and whatever else you want to separate) and run the Split command (right-click or Mesh/Commands/Split) – that makes a copy of the polys in a new object but leaves the originals in the old object – so either delete the polys in the old object or split all the parts and hide or delete the original

[Brian Jones]

helix works pretty well for a while – are you looking for the landing as well?

9056_precessiontrial.c4d.zip