Anim8or Community

I have decided I want to produce my own take on some of the iconic spaceships from classic SciFi films. I'm starting with the C-57D "Space Cruiser" from the 1956 cult film "Forbidden Planet". I found a useable, scalable exterior view and dimensions to make the shape of the hull. I'm not worried about the saucer itself because I can visualize the shapes needed to model the thing.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to do one of the iconic shots in the film, namely the landing. How would you go about getting that double glow underneath the craft when it is landing. I can see there are two different cones but how might I get the edges to be kind of indefinite? I can do transparency and textures even transparency map texture. No problem. I'm looking for suggestions as to how to give those "landing beams" indistinct edges. If there is a tutorial on doing something like this (a "hologram" display?) a simple link will suffice. Otherwise I know there some really talented people in the community and I wanna pick your brains.

I do plan to animate the landing so I will definitely looking for advice on how to animate various elements.

First off, if I ask a "why" question it is purely to understand how something came to be done as/when it was.

So:

My question involves the parameters that can be entered when first creating a sphere. For instance, when I create a lat/long sphere I can specify up to 24 longitude lines but latitude maxes out at 16. May I ask why the difference? And why the (for some things) low limits? (Note: "I don't remember." and "Nunya business." are absolutely acceptable responses.)

When I go to create a geodesic sphere (dome actually for me) the maximum number of "divisions" is 6. Why that number? I'm wondering if it was just a choice or there was a practical/procedural reason for those parameter limits.
(I'll go away now. Stephen, I am in such awe at what you have accomplished with Anim8or that you cannot believe it.)

Anybody know of a cheap (okay, free) landform generator? I am taking the plunge into creating scenes and want to generate some basic landforms to put buildings and other things into in order to build a scene.

I've been experimenting with textures and sometimes Anim8or does things I'm really not expecting.

Is there a max (or optimum) file size (Mb) or image size (A pixels x B pixels @ C pixels/inch) for use as a texture? I've loaded a couple of (admittedly hi-rez) textures and Anim8or just quits. Is that to be expected? For the record I'm using Photoshop Elements 2021 to create/edit my texture files.

Having difficulty with bump maps. Again is there a max or an optimum file size or image size or resolution?

Finally, I've loaded a crap ton of textures into the current project. I'd like to be able to delete some of them. Can I do that? And while I'm at it, is there a way to delete unused/no longer used materials?

Sorry to be such a crybaby.

Observation: Using textures is really cool. GENERATING those textures can be a royal pain. (funny how the universe works that way, huh)

I have not worked with textures on my models since BEFORE the Covid lockdown in 2020. Suddenly I find myself needing to apply textures to specific faces of a given mesh. I absolutely cannot recall how to do that. Help an old man out? Just a link to a tutorial will suffice. Otherwise a basic step 1, step 2 step 3 general procedure will do.

Second issue. I asked a similar question earlier but do not think I expressed my question intelligibly. The problem was entirely mine. So here is what I need to do. I do a lot of things with modified spheres. Unfortunately when Anim8or generates a sphere the "convergence points" of the sphere (north and south poles?) are on the top and bottom. I need them to be on the front and back. No biggie I just put "90" into one of the axes and "BINGO" its oriented. The problem is that can cause  issues for other things. What I would like to be able to do is create a sphere, rotate it as needed then bring the mesh's axes back congruent to the other axes in the program. Is it as simple as rotating the mesh axes?

I need to make something out of shiny chrome metal. I would love to hear anybody's suggestion as to the materials editor settings to do that. Here is what I have at present:
Ambient = 0.300
Diffuse = 0.900
Specular = 0.900
Emissive = 0.000
Rough = 6
Trans = 1
Brilliance = 2

Ambient/Diffuse RGB = 217, 217, 217
Specular RGB =  228, 228, 228

Any suggestions for tweaks will be appreciated - AND TRIED!

Thank you in advance.

I needed a shape like a propane tank or a medicine capsule. I made a sphere which I specified to be lat/long with 24 vertical segments (the max supported) and 15 horizontal (1 less than max) at a given diameter. the advantage with using 15 horizontal segments is that it gives me a sphere without an equator - i.e. it's already part way to the shape I need. Then I converted to mesh and mirrored it. at that point all I had to do was drag one hemisphere to where I needed it and voila propane tank!

Now I want to go back and orient the danged thing so that it is lined up fore-aft on the z axis with the object's axes aligned with the main axes of the program. How do I do that? In effect I want to rotate just the axes without rotating the object itself. Can I do that?

I vaguely recall being to generate a sphere with a known number of lat/long segments and a specified size. Am I off the beam? What I want to do is make a medicine capsule shape with max resolution and not have to futz with surface normals. I figure to do that as follows: generate a circular spline of max resolution, split it in 2, separate the halves, connect the halves with straight lines and lathe the resulting shape into my medicine capsule with surface normals all nice and arranged.

Could somebody point me in the right direction?