Ok, one at a time

Backgorund is done with a screen behind and a simple texture on screen for the render (if you want to create clever reflections and stuff). So just create a big "cube" or "plane" and then use the material editor to add a texture (if you need more detail just ask). Or change the environment (I believe the shortcut is 8) and put a picture as the backgorund

Different positions

1. Get the animation extractor (can be found at twcenter.net)
2. Follow instructions to extract animations
3. Go to the utilities tab and find the plugin for cas
4. Click on load animation and go to the place where the animations were extracted, load up an animation such as walk, then move the scrolling bar at the bottom of the screen to see different positions in that animation
5. Take a render (shortcut F9)

The_Ferret, to alter weapons and armor you need to go to the modifiers tab (curved blue line symbol) and then either add modifiers to the objects or edit the editable mesh by moving the vertices around. You can also use the move, scale and rotate buttons, which are found at the top of the screen. (just below the words graph editors) The modifiers are simple things like bending and tapering going on to complex things like UV maps and fun stuff like melting. To move the vertices first select the object you are going to edit, then click on the little plus box by the words editable mesh, now click on vertices. Go to one of your views and select one of the blue dots, move it around and stuff to edit. Have fun both of you

Sundjata Keita