Hi.
I created a large bell for a church steeple or could be use where ever and want to add the animations for it, just some rotating back and forth and if posible the sound effects. I have searched the site for tutorials on animation and come up with very little about it. I was wandering if someone could point me in the right direction as to where I can get help for it.

I created the bell in maya with the animations and I even exported it in smd format and exported it in .anim format, but when I go to SimPE and where I thought you import the new animation, it makes the program not responding and I have to ctrl-alt-del to exit the simpe. I have tried the animation editor that mich has from here and created the animation in it and saved. then I try to convert it to smd and it also makes the program not respond and lock up.

I have created numerous objects in the past and I know how to model something. But usually all the objects I created were for the decorative. I'm tired of creating just motionless objects so I thought I would add some animation to some, but I am new to animations and confused on some of the stuff I have read about it. I know it has to be something I'm doing wrong, but I dont know what. I hope someone can point me in the right direction or explain how to import it into SimPE and where in SimPE exactly it might go.

momma"b"

Well, making rotating bell is possible, and relatively easy, and you can likely even avoid using joints in GMDC.

First of all, as far as I know, object animations can only be altered in SimPE, or exported-imported to Milkshape ASCII. Well, for a simple thing like bell rotating SimPE should be enough.

I'd simply add two joints to the CRES - root_trans and bell_rot - and set Practical node as child of the latter joint. Check Numenor's article about CRES structure to see how joints are stored in CRES. Then bell's GMDC can have no joints inside - when bell_rot will be rotated, its child Practical will be rotated too.
Which parts you bell consists of - most importantly, does it have to-be-rotated and to-be-standing-still parts? If you have standing-still parts, you'll have either add joints to GMDC, or - I think it'll be easier - add separate GMDC-GMND-SHPE for them, and add their Practical node as child or root_trans joint.

Editing the ANIM resource will be the easiest part of this project. Clone any anim with 2 joints (I'd use plate carrying animations), rename rotation joint, and add as many keyframes as you need. As I mentioned in other thread - the 2nd editbox in Parameter row for a keyframe/axis contains angle in degrees - it's easy to edit.

Good luck in your project