[Vincent Rosati]

If you are able to eventually arrange the workspace as you like, once that is done, you can Window/Workspace/Save Workspace.

[Vincent Rosati]

Thats a tough one. Deinterlacing the video could help smooth the abberation. But, there a number of deinterlacing techniques.
It’s possible that the damage exists only in either the upper or lower fields. If so, you could potentially eliminate the lines completely, but you’d lose half of your vertical resolution by using a field doubling deinterlacing technique.
Search the COW archives for deinterlacing techniques, they’re all here. 🙂

[Vincent Rosati]

One issue is going to be PAR (pixel aspect ratio). You should convert the images, which are probably square (1.0) PAR, to 1.2 for widescreen or 0.9 for full screen.
Another issue could be color range. Broadcast standards have a slightly narrower color range than print media or film. Use the Broadcast Color filter.
You should also ‘deflicker’ still images when preparing for video. Google: deflickerator.

[Vincent Rosati]

Check to see if Audio Playback on Desktop is checked in your Project Settings.
Perhaps it’s a codec issue.
Can you see the waveform in the timeline?
How are you capturing?

[Vincent Rosati]

Try Object/Expand Appearance.

[Vincent Rosati]

Just a guess, but if you’re trying to add a texture to an image you could place the texture image on top of the target image and apply a blending mode to the texture.
In PS it’s in the Layers palette, the default is ‘Normal’. In Illustrator, it’s in the Transparency palette.

[Vincent Rosati]

Kudos on the GIF/matte discovery!
PNG with transparency can be viewed “correctly” in most browsers, but not all, some will show white instead of the transparency. Further, PNGs store gamut info, so the Mac/PC gamut difference could be problematic when you need a smooth blend. I’d stay with GIFs, for your purposes.
As far as the format change issue, I’m not sure, but I’d recommend you set your OS to display file extensions so there are no questions.

[Vincent Rosati]

The only trick I have for using live trace on photos, other that simply adjusting the trace settings, is to do multiple tracings of duplicates of the image with different trace settings. Than, make a composite using the different trace results.

Vince

[Vincent Rosati]

I’m not sure if this answers your question but…
Yes, you can do all of the “spline” operations in Illustrator.
For rounding corners – select the object, then Effect/Stylize/Round Corners. To access the settings for further adjustment, click Window/Appearance and the Appearance tab will open.
Illustrator ‘Effects’ are live/procedural generators. So, when you are ready to go back to Max – select the object than click Object/Expand. Press Ctrl+Y to see the actual paths/splines. Or View/Outlines.
If you need a fillet that is not rounded, you would simply have to add points with the Pen Tool, than position the points accordingly.
As far as welding points, that would be ‘Join’ in Illustrator.
You would use the Direct Selection Tool to select the two points in question than Ctrl+J or Object/Path/Join. This creates a path between two points, or it converts the two points into one point if the points are at the same coordinates.
Ctrl+Alt+J will centralize all selected points when selected with the Direct Selection tool.

To define a size with a shape tool (such as a circle), select the shape from the tool palette than click on the artboard, a popup will appear asking for a dimension.

[Vincent Rosati]

Press Ctrl+Alt+2(PC), to release any locked objects. Than make sure you have Scale Strokes and Effects enabled in your General Preferences. Try to scale again.

Or, save a new version of the document, than Select All, Object/Expand and/or Object/Expand Appearance – whichever works in your case.

Or, you could paste the art into Photoshop as a Smart Object, than resize.

Just some thoughts.
Vince