[kcy88]

Ryan Dognaux-
"if you wanna take the time to make a motor or whatever.. and waste time, then fine, but it's a heck of a lot easier to get on that website and download them. "

umm... sure it would... how bout asking some1 else to do your animation... that'd be alot easier for you...

the whole point of doing an animation as a student is not only to represent your team, but to also learn and overcome the learning curves and challenge yourself. Sharpen up your skills, and to be creative. Downloading free objects is a waste of time and it doesn't benefit you, it only benefits the completion time of your animation. One of the challenging aspects of animating is modeling the objects. I take pride in all the models i create.
However, to be honest, i often do download free obj., but i only use them for test renders and to get a feel of how the scene make look. In the end, i still model the object i need.

personally, i believe using third party renderers is cheating.
lol
its too easy to make a scene look real in Brazil. All you have to do is enable GI, skylight, and add the Brazil plane. It doesnt matter what the mats look like, the object will look real.

and again..
good luck animating!

-kevin