Thanks for the suggestions.
I'm actually more interested in those fast paced vertically-scrolling Space Invaders kind of arcade games, rather than space simulators. Still, some of these are really great games.
you should use Up Vector for legs and hands. It should solve your twisting problems.
as for the spine - try rotating the implicit box before making it a spine.
basically it doesnt matter what objects you choose to create your spine from.
the tutorial scene had two prepared ones that are sort of easy to make out from the lot.
you can just go to Get > Primative > Implicit > whatever you like and make a spine from a couple of these.
in any case, you...
you can load preconfigured profiles (and gamma,brightness,saturation control) by binding them to key combinations if youre using catalyst. theres a downside though: you cant do it for the desktop - if you choose to play in window mode
changing this thing is really fine, brightness varies from...