[Sean]

It worked!!

Thanks again so much Brian. The bend deformer worked like a charm. Your sample was very very helpful.

Just a note that I figured out I also needed to use a ‘stick texture’ tag to make sure my textures didn’t slip when I bent the object.

Yay! Thank you!!

[Sean]

Awesome, Brian. Thank you so much for your help.

I’m going to try what you suggest! Really grateful.

[Sean]

Thanks a ton for the suggestion, Brian. I hadn’t thought about using those deformers. Sounds like a good solution!

I’m still a little puzzled, though. *If* i wanted to use bones, then I assume I *couldn’t* “leave all the bits in the null” like I can with the deformers. Is that right?

Is there an easy way to combine all those bits? like some sort of merge/optimize objects command? Or do I maybe need to stitch all the elements together in point mode or something? That sounds like a real pain…

Thanks so much again for your help.

[Sean]

Thanks for replying, Brian.

I’m just interested in animating the whole spaceship as if it were a cartoony type of character. So I’d like the tube shaped spaceship to be able to bend in the middle (I guess like a banana) and maybe twist at the middle as well. I figured bones/joints were the way to go for something like that.

Was that a wrong assumption?

Thanks.