The Animation So Far

I have started messing about with my final animation, I haven't got very far but here it is at the moment.
I started by importing my three models into a single file. This was relatively simple except that they lost their textures. Slightly irritating but not the end of the world, I reapplied them and was back on track.

I then decided to create my Ornithopter flight path and then lock the Ornithopter model to it. Here came the second problem, up to this point the models were essentially just various shapes positioned to look like they're intended invention. This meant that each individual part could be moved independantly, the problem came when I tried to map the Ornithopter to its flight path. Rather than all the pieces moving and staying in their original orientation, each one was mapped to the start of the flight path, reducing my Ornithoper to looking like it had been in a serious collision, wings, wood and rope all bundled up together.
This made me realise that I needed to make all the individual pieces one whole model so they would be easier to work with. I did theis by selecting all the individual pieces of a model and, in the group menu, group them together!
This now meant that when I click on any part of a model, the whole thin is selected as if it was on object. I then mapped the Ornithopter to its flight path again, changed it's orientation to match the direction it will need to go and that was that. Jan 1, 3DS Max 0!