Originally posted by drfish
Only 4 hours? You do realize it's almost October, don't you? 
What Jim needs is a transparent way to work with an object sometimes as a whole and sometimes in groups. He needs to be able to add rotation and transformation centerpoints to a larger object which only certain vertices respond to and with different percentages. It is inverse kinematics with some more complexity thrown in.
I have no doubt that Pixar, PDI, and Dreamworks are doing this yet I see games and screen savers struggle (and usually fail) to do this well. What A guru of this type of animation needs to help Jim write DirectX code that does this on-the-fly without bringing a PC to its knees.
Do I think the theory could be hammered out in 4 hours? Absolutely.
Do I think Jim write code that does what I've described above without using some Algebra and Geometry and some communication with Newtek (creators of Lightwave)? Miracles occur, but who can build a business model on that?
