Have you tried deinterlaced images?

If you mean a slider that controls the joint's rotation/translation/scale, it can be done with mel.
Look up the 'window' command in the manual, that's the function that does interfaces, I think...

Thanks for the welcome Kevin, I'm really new to this board ... seems a nice one ... :)

Here's a quick way with particles ...

... create a plane, select Particles->Emit from object->option box, choose Surface emitter type (I'd sugest tubes for particle type ...);
add a gravity...