That's some excellent, very clever, and entertaining work you've done there, johnar!  I would hazard to say it's your best ever!  Very convincing movements!  Congrats!

VERY COOL, johnar!  That was a lot of intricate work, no doubt.  Great sound effects, too!

Welcome aboard, Wizard_gp!  Those are excellent examples of what can be done with some relatively simple and easy-to-use tools!  Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a bit of talent, as you obviously do.

Darn right!  Looks great ENSONIQ5!  Makes me itchy to see it animated!

"Good" subdivision modeling can look real nice, but it takes a lot of practice, and you need to understand how edge-loops work and where to place them.  Otherwise, models DO end up looking like disjointed blobs.  Of course, smooth subdivision modeling also usually means the polygon count goes up, which leads to longer render times.  But it can be well worth it.

If you're interested in subdivision modeling, I suggest you practice with some simple models to get acquainted with subdivision modeling, and I think there are actually a few Anim8or-related tutorials for it.

Double-cross?

There IS a free 3DS/OBJ to FBX converter here:  http://myclone.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/free-standalone-obj3ds-to-fbx-converter/.

Ahem...

While it's true we traditionally consider the stars to be in the upper-left corner on the FRONT of waving American flag, they will be appear to be on the upper-right if viewed from the other side of that same waving flag.  Also, flags are traditionally "backwards" on U.S. military uniforms.  See here: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/theorderlyroom/f/faqflag.htm

davdud101 ---
While specifying how to export an object file may be the most obvious response, I'm not certain that will really do Josepsh much good because, according to this site (http://www.gtamodding.com/index.php?title=Model_file), GTA requires  models to be in .dff file format.

Blick Fang ---
It's not magic.  Just some key frames with translation along the X-axis, and now, I added some translation along the Y-axis and orientation along the pitch axis.

I attached a very simple telescoping example that I threw together in 5 minutes...

The only trick is to parent the middle tube to the outer tube, and the smallest tube to the middle tube...

The short answer: absolutely!

It really depends on what it is you're trying to animate, and whether or not it needs "organic-type" motion.  For instance, I've created multiple rotary and linear mechanism animations with absolutely NO bones!  There's no hard-and-fast rule that says you need bones.

cello95 ---
Just so you know, Leslie is a he, not a she...

I have to say that that has got to be one of the MOST impressive jobs I've seen done with Anim8or!  Easy-to-follow and convincingly played out!  Bravo!

Looks like actual geometry to me, Cori.