Anim8or Community

So I've tried using Terranim8or to animate water and everything turned out fine..almost.

The only problem I have is that the water has to be animated for a long scene. As a result terranim8or created ALOT of objects for the water morphing sequence.

Is there anyway to animate water without generating so many objects? Is it possible maybe to use one object (the water) instead of multiple ones?

I'm having trouble trying to figure out which are the best compression settings for rendering avi's out of anim8or. Can you guys tell me what settings have worked for you and any tips that make rendering avi's faster while preserving quality?

I know that there are two ways to subdivide an object by either permanantly subdividing or converting the mesh to a subdivision object. I noticed that when ever I imported a subdivision object into UV mapper, it would convert the object back to its low poly form.

So here are my two questions....

Is it ok to texture the low poly mesh and then convert it back to a subdivision object in anim8or? I'm worried that if I do this, the texture will become warped.

OR....

Should I permenantly subdivide the mesh and then texture it?                                                        

So I was experiementing in Anim8or I got an idea for my next project. I'm modeling a robot droid that does mining operations on Mars.

Here are some sketches and a picture of the almost complete model. I gotta do texturing next.....

So I heard the most recent version of ART now has the ability to do Ambient Occlusion renders. So I went on the website to check it out and try it for myself.... only problem is I'm not to sure how to do this...

Any suggestions on how to do an ambient occlusion render in anim8or?

After modeling I usually import my models as an obj. file into UV mapper. When I save the unwrapped mesh as a bitmap so I can texture it, the paint program only lets me use several colors  However, when I work in my paint program (I use gimp and MS paint) without a UV map, everything works normally.

(example of problem: all shades of yellow and green become a dull yellow and all reds become a purple color and all shades of blue become a light blue color, etc.)

Did I loose color information when I saved the bitmap of my model from UV mapper or is something with the paint program?

P.S. It would be great help if someone could also tell me what UV mapping tool they use and how they dealt with the same problem.

I'm trying to model the sun in anim8or but I have no idea how to make it glow realistically. I've tried placing a light in front of it to simulate the glow effect but it just doesn't look right....any ideas??

I also have a second question to ask. 

Im trying to animate a character picking up a ball. However, I have to animate the ball with every keyframe of the hand movement and it makes it look like the ball isn't staying properly in his hand. Is there anyway I can cause the ball to move relative to the hand so it seems like its staying firmly in his grasp or do I have to do this keyframe by keyframe?