i am trying to learn setting up an character for animation. and not to do something only i can use, i wanted to do it usefull from the beginning. probably i should get a book about it which i am not willing to do just now. not sure if it is possible, but i dont want me (or the animator who gets the model) to go down to ik-handle level or locators. so i imagine parenting them to little objects outside the character which then can be animated and drive all the skeleton. it might be overkill, but you only set a character up once. now the questions:

• how many of the animateable little helpers are usefull?
• what kind of help would a animator dream about?
• is documentation needed to explain the animator how to use the character?
• is a command center (a big thing with a lot of sliders to control most of the character (head nodding, open/close hands, flex muscles w/o moving, breathe .... ) a waste of time to implement or very handy ?

i know - a lot of questions. hope to get a few answered.

thanks