Anim8or Community

Smoothing with a tension of 1 just places edges and points between existing edges and points without actually smoothing anything, whereas a tension of 0 would give 64 smooth facets.  Your point about the end caps is valid but this can be addressed with 'edge reinforcing' prior to smoothing.  There are a few ways to do this but the goal is to double- or triple-up any edges you want to keep sharp before smoothing.  The roller below was lathed from a rectangle with 32 facets (first image - note the tripled edges around the inner and outer rim) before being subdivided (second image).

Yes, you can certainly lathe a 100-sided N-Gon into a sphere shape, though you will end up with a doubling of the mesh since the object would actually be a torus with a diameter of zero.  A simpler way is to start with the basic sphere primitive and subdivide it, either by converting to a subdivision object (Build > Convert to Subdivided) or converting it to a mesh (Build > Convert to Mesh) and using the Build > Smooth Object command with a tension of 0.  In the latter case you can smooth as many times as you like, doubling the number of lat/long lines each time, and the result is an exportable mesh.

Subdivision objects use an algorithm to determine subdivisions between the basic mesh so an exported version of the object may only include the original low-res mesh, but this can be resolved using Build > Convert to Mesh.  Subdivision objects are excellent for 'organic' models that will be morph-animated, since you only need to animate the coarse mesh while allowing the subdivision algorithm to smooth everything out.

One thing to note: due to its topology the sphere primitive may look a bit pinched at the 'poles' when subdivided.  Subdividing the dodecahedron or icosahedron primitive results in something more like a geodesic object without polar distortions and approaches a spherical shape with a couple of subdivision stages.

EDIT: I momentarily forgot that the sphere object can be converted from lon/lat topology to geodesic by double-clicking to open the object dialog, and the geodesic divisions can be defined (max 6).  While not strictly a true geodesic it may subdivide more smoothly than the lon/lat topology.

Aside from polygons being the culprit for your slow render times, as RudySchneider has suggested, I can't see anything in your render that's the obvious cause.  Slow render times are usually the result of things like numerous complex ART materials, lots of lights, soft shadows, AO etc. and none of these are evident in your render.  One other potential cause is massive texture maps but even then I wouldn't expect anything like 35 minutes to render the frame713 image.

I would recommend a process of elimination, replacing complex textured materials with simple materials, removing extra shadow-casting lights etc., until the cause of the slow render is found.  Without seeing the project as a whole or knowing your system's capabilities it's hard to say how quickly that frame 'should' have rendered but from what I can see (accepting that there's likely to be a lot I can't see from the render) that frame would have rendered in less than a minute on my system.

Regarding UV mappers I use LithUnwrap which has a free downloadable version, but there are others.  Google is your friend in that respect.  Having said that, Anim8or's built-in UV control tool is actually really useful, for example the glowing panels and switches on the console in the second image above were all added to the object and aligned with it before the object was exported for rendering (mainly for consistency I render most things outside Anim8or which is a shame really, since Anim8or renders always seem to look richer somehow).

Re your comment "Since we cannot actually reflect the background, how does specifying a texture in the "Env. Map" help me?", I should point out that ART materials are absolutely capable of reflecting the background using the ART renderer.  ART materials are complex but seriously powerful, the manual is very detailed on these and is definitely compulsory reading before tackling them!

Regarding what happens when placing different textures in different channels, I would recommend creating a single scene with a single object and light source and experiment away, rendering the same scene with materials in each channel and swapping them about for each render.  It really is the best way to get to grips with how the different material channels work.

If your maquette (I think that is the word) is essentially made out of a collection of parts, like a wooden figure with moveable joints or a toy robot, you can skip the skinning stage.  Skinning is useful for objects that are bendy, like a maquette made from plasticine or something similar.

To create a non-skinned, jointed figure I would generally have each body part in a separate object, and another object that contains the full assembled figure.  The skeleton can be constructed using the full figure as a guide which is then removed, and each body part is then added to its corresponding bone.  It's important to have the orientation and centre point of each object correct in object mode or the objects may not align with their bone as expected, but this can be corrected in object mode easily enough if required.

Once the object is posed in Sequence or Scene mode, it can be exported as a posed mesh using Sequence > Export... and choosing the 3DS option (the Anim8or option exports the sequence as a complete Anim8or file rather than a posed mesh).  I should point out that the 3DS export function may have problems exporting subdivision objects, though this might be something that has been resolved in later updates (I'm using V1.0).  If this is the case it may be necessary to convert any subdivision objects to meshes first.

I'm not sure if there is any way to directly export a posable figure from Anim8or, this isn't something I have had need to do but others may be able to assist.  I assume you would need to know the format your buddy requires (ie. the software he is using) at the very least.

Sure you didn't move anything or re-name any folders?  Anim8or files store texture locations as absolute paths, if you rename or move the folder they are stored in it will throw this error.  You can open the file and fix any materials with missing textures.

Brilliant!  If a picture tells a thousand words a 3D picture tells 10,000.  With not much more than a cursory glance it's clear how your batteries are set up, would have been quite wordy and easy to misinterpret to cover this with text alone.