I came across this tutorial (http://www.3dspline.com/Tutorials/Doorseams/Doorseams.htm) just now.. and your post came to mind.

It isn't Maya specific but hell it can show you what I can't type...

Mmm yes.. and no.

Depends.

Do you want the door to be functional and to open and close?

If you want JUST looks then a simple texture map may be enough.

If you want it to be a modeled...

It hit me later on...
you miight want to give this (http://www.highend3d.com/files/readme.3d?group=mayaplugins&file_id=1344&file_loc=SoundRendererForMaya4-v1.1-.5.zip) a go.

If you go to the...

I am not TOO sure of this but I think mixmiester has a wave matching to mix diffrent rythms which you could also get bitmap outputs some what like that you see on the alcemy of the media player.
...

For such an effect; you may be just as satisfied using curves to deform the brows and maybe by painting cluster weights for the eyelids.

Using deformers for animating takes some practice. But in...

What you are describing sounds like a gimble lock from orientation. Not exactly a Gimble actually ... what ever...

When you mirred the joints, in the options did you have it set to behavior or to...

I read your post three times and STILL couldn't understand what exactly you are talking about.. must be getting tired here!...

Now here are some ideas... since you have the lights turn on and off...

:rolleyes:

Do you mean you want to know how to ad some surface details?

you lost me...

If you are working with Maya and you want to have the Alpha channel work without any problems, it is usually a good idea to save the file as a Targa(*.tga).

Targa stores the Alpha channel Data...

mmm in NURB's you don't really be able to get away with 'attaching' as you do with poly's. Can't really expect to have a single object in result.

As long as the edge curves share the same position...