I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to create smoke coming from the chimney of a house...if I use a sphere/square etc and the vol smoke as the material, it works...but if I use metaballs or a lattice, no smoke...it is invisible...maybe they can not be used for creating smoke?? does anyone know of some good tuts on this topic or have any pointers for making great smoke from thick to whispy and barely-there? thanks for any advice! :D

Attached Link: http://www.petersharpe.com/

Check the Mist and Water Vapour tutorial. Metaballs usually have problems with volumetric materials. they simply don't appear in render. Lattice, have you checked "solid" in Terrain Editor? The little black triangle above the Terrain Canvas. Off the top of my head, you need a 2D object with a picture of smoke and a mask, actually.

Metaballs take only certain materials. They can use volume materials if the alpha is mostly grey-white (if I remember), if it's mostly black (the transparent part) then you get nothing when rendered.

WOW, what a goldmine of tutorials...thankyou!! :D and no, I did not have the "solid" checked for the lattice, but I do now...thankyou again, for your help...I think I'm on the right track now and very very grateful for the comments!