Some questions about Custom models.

[Amnesiaplayer]

I have some questions about modelling, since I started doing it, and getting better and better at it.
Sorry for my bad English, I feel there is some grammar fails above xD

But my questions now,
Is it possible to hav ean animated object?! Like you probably misunderstand this and tell me
Do you even play amnesia?! of ocurse there are animations. look at grunt?
but no not that.
I am going to animate some alien kinda things, like moving tentacle, moving alien egg and all that stuff.
So basically what I want, it just 1 "static"object ot entity, that uses 1 animation for the whole time.
like the spider slime thing, some of them do have animations etc.
I tried this once, I made an animation, and opened it in the modelview, it was messed up, the 4 "mouth"parts were totally out of the.... egg/head, but I thought, it is still good, the 8 tentacles were moving, as I did in maya.
but In level, it doesn't do anything...
btw, this is a .dae file, I really don't know how to add a .dae.anim file or .dae.anm
But that's my first question...

My custom story is not going to a whole new planet, but new places either.
I want to create my own volcano. Yes, volcano. I have created some particles, like fog moving quick, (what is supposed to be appear right after the eruption) but Is there really no way to Activate, and deactivate a billboard?!
That's should be handy...

Btw, does someone know a good software, that creates .cubemaps?!
I really need it, lack of skyboxes...

Btw, just to tell you, I've heard it was impossible to create your own decal.
Just for the people that doesn't know, create your own decal, and make the background BLACK, like the official decal has, I'm not sure what color they used, simply black, or black/grey, so you better just open another decal and use the Color picker or something like that, then just the open material editor, and save it, and then just click on the "decal" tab, and open a "material" and use the material you want. I'm not sure if this is gonna work, I tried it with some of my custom floors, it worked. so I hope it works for some of you too

I have a lot of questions I know, but I am trying to make my custom story as good as possible.
I'm sure there are some peoples around here thinking that it is not going to work, because it sounds weird. Aliens, volcano's etc...
I really appreciate all your help!
Thanks