animate how?

[virtualmesh]

is the bacteria already modelled ?
if not, then I suggest you draw the lines protruding from the base of the bacterial cell using standard max splines (you can use the jpg file you provided as a reference within 3dsmax on a plane or as a background) and then key-frame each spline's vertices - that will animate the 'legs' of the bacterial cell (don't forget to hide the reference image behind the splines before you render). make sure your spline's vertices are set to smooth and set your splines to renderable. you can even apply texture coordinates to the splines and give them a texture if you desired one.

[thatoneguy]

Keep each tentacle a seperate object then apply a ripple modifier. Animate phase at the appropriate rate.

Unless I wanted a really short animation I wouldn't want to test my patience with hand animation of a 1000 little squigles.

I would also apply a modifier on top of that which could allow you to use dynamics to just simulate the squiglies flowing behind the main body/cell in addition to the ripples.

[pipjor]

i was screwing around with cloth and wind in reactor and couldn't get what i wanted, so i tried the wave space warp and bound my geometry(cylinders) legs to the wave space warp and it seems to work OK. I'm not totally happy but i guess it's OK.

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