Animation: joints
You might want to take a look at some of the meshes on the R3 CD-ROM by Tom and
Helene Knight. They have managed to create jointed characters whose joints are
so carefully crafted as to be hardly visible. Thus when a knee bends (pivots),
the seam between the thigh and calf sections hardly "show."
They have 3 jointed models (with keyframes) on the CD-ROM (in directory
\geometry\vendors\iworks) and 2 "static" ones. The static ones show the detail
and economy their modeling and the (much simplified) jointed ones illustrate
animating a character. The ones they SELL, of course, are both detailed AND
jointed.
They are Imagination Works, and can be reached at (408) 354-5067.