The usual way (easily scriptable I reckon ...) would be to redefine the axis/pivot orientation of the main curve, then use parent mode to place the control points easily.
Excellent, thanks Philip! One thing I noticed is each page seems to be lacking navigation links, to get back to the "parent" page. Would be nice to have.
For Maya you can make an empty group and move and rotate it exactly the way you want the pivot to be. Then parent the object to it and freeze the object, it will use the groups' pivot.
Errrr... Better yet, for areaLight1... setAttr "areaLight1.lodVisibility" 0; Don't use the shape lodVisibility. ( Transform will override ) Parent the light into yer object. Grade A 101%
It is convenient to have a mesh made up a central body with its own uv/textures/materials (say, 3 materials, 2048 uv), upon which will be parented other parts/meshes each with 1-2 materials and 512 uvs?
Yes, you can export all sub-objects as one fbx, and that'll be brought into whatever program as one mesh parent with multiple children of all the individual parts you originally had split.