Dynamic animations (The hammer is for my brains)

I’m relatively new to flash, and just upgraded from Flash 6 to Flash 10. This is a HUGE jump for me, but strangely, I already feel more at home in Fl10 than Fl6, as it is more object oriented, and as a hardened programmer, I like.

I’m attempting to create dynamically animated objects in a flash application. I can’t think of a way to approach the issue without either a: converting each keyframe into a bitmap, or b: brute-force generating each frame every step of the way.

Seeing as my application will have hundreds of the little bastards on the screen at any time, option b is out of the question, I presume.

So, essentially, I have a few questions about AS3:

  1. Can a curve be modified after it has been drawn, or must it be cleared, then redrawn each frame?

  2. Can a IK chain modify curves, or is it only per-symbol?

  3. How fast can flash render complex objects in 3D? (I.E. would drawing hundreds of 400+ poly objects be too much?)

  4. How fast can flash draw vector objects? (I.E. would drawing hundreds of creatures made up of dozens of curves be too cumbersome?)