Muscle compound tutorial?

[DejanNj]

Is anyone willing and able to make some tutorial about this topic? General guidelines? Principles? Approaches?

I'm a Max user, but ICE noob, and I'm trying to apply some techniques regarding muscles creation that I know trough ICE, but I'm getting weird results...one of them is that a position of an object (x,y,z global space) (null) at which the ICE tree is "sitting", influences the position of another objects in the tree? Is this normal? Does this object upon which the ICE tree is build should transfer such kind of data down the line?

Basically the idea is this, (nothing fancy and new):

1. Linear Line (curve) with two clusters at each end.
2. Couple of Circles (Curves), sitting on the curve.
3. Distance between clusters drives radius of circles.
4. Circles constrained between clusters/curve.
5. Create particle at each point of all circles.
6. Create polygons or surfaces between them.
7. Spring formula applied to particles.
8. Simulate jiggle.

Maybe it's a VERY simplistic approach but it should work ...

Few more question, are these 8 "steps" one big ICE tree? One compound? Or Each of these steps demands it's own tree? Or there is no rule? How many ICE trees can be in one scene, before it chokes Softimage?

Noob... I warned you...