[Brian Jones]

ignore the fins and add them as separate objects later. You don’t even have to attach them to the rocket body just get them in place then drop them on ht erocket body which will make them a child of the rocket body. Then wherever the rocket goes the fins follow as if it was one object.

[Brian Jones]

the Lathe object spins the spline around the Lathe’s Y axis so you can’t use that picture with the rocket tilted like that as it doesn’t know you want to spin it around the center of the rocket. If you are going to trace the image, tilt the background image so that it’s pointing straight up (looks like -45°-ish would do it)

[Brian Jones]

Object Highlighting under Viewport/Filter?

[Brian Jones]

it depends a bit on the version of C4D you are using (and if you have customized the interface) but it should be on the upper-left of the editor window icons – the Model/Object/Animation Tools are there. It can also be reached via menus, in R19 it’s in Tools/Modes/Animation.

The Help says:
Animation
When in this mode an active object’s entire animation path can be moved, scaled or rotated. Clicking on and moving keys individually is always possible.

[Brian Jones]

you don’t need motion clips just the Animation Tool which lets you move the (I assume in this case) the rig around and it brings the animation with it.

[Brian Jones]

I have never used it to intentionally overwrite files… I can’t find a preference to override, the help says
“Output Path

Here you can define a save path different from the save path defined in the selected job scene. If you do not select a different save path the path defined in the scene will be used. The Queue Manager will check if the exact save path and name are used by other jobs and will modify the name automatically (to prevent one job from overwriting another).”

and yet still the warning about files being overwritten….
I would try removing the Output Path from the original scene files or the Render Queue completely and use only one source to specify where the files go. Do a couple short tests to see what queue manager is doing by default as the help description is a bit ambiguous here.

[Brian Jones]

the interface that loads when creating a render queue warns that ‘files will be overwritten if they already exist’ so as long as the Output File slot has the path/name you want to overwrite it should work as you want – just make sure it’s correct as it does add letters/numbers behind the name to keep files separate by default (I assume they want it to not overwrite unless you intentionally cause it to)

[Brian Jones]

even 145 MB for two models with only 70,000 polys combined seems far too large. I have a scanned dragon with 871,000 polys that saves as 25 MB and a 7.2 million poly xyzrgb model that saves as 202 MB

[Brian Jones]

don’t use a random effector use a Step effector with color mode on – oh yeah, set the Step effector’s Effector/Spline to Linear or it will double up at the beginning and end…

[Brian Jones]

there are many ways to do it but the easiest might be a Lathe – read up in the help but the basics are, create 1/2 the the outline (front or side view would be best) with a spline then put that spline in a Lathe object