I started learning bitmap tex last night. No word in the official man. A problem: I created a simple checkerboard bitmap and loaded it [F6, Image texture, Load image, etc.]. I experimented with mapping but I get different result in the preview window and in the renderer. Internal sees only the upper surface and the rest is black irrespective of the position of light [as shown; actually the light can be even below the cube and the side walls are still black] while YafRay generates a white cube [with the same light as shown]. Any ideas?

If you load the bitmap texture (with the object selected)then simply map to cube, you must see the texture on every face of the cube. For a good start, I recomand you to read the two Blender freeware pdf books for beginners: "Beginners Tutorial Guide" (50 pag.) and "Blender Basics" (3 parts. - 100 pag.). YafRay is very hungry for lights. If you want to use YafRay, you must amplify all lights in the scene. Cristi

I'm not sure the thing with Yafray is a lighting problem; I've had textures disappear in the Yafray render, too. So far it's only happened with procedurals for me, though, and I haven't had any problems with the internal render. Have you tried looking at it in textured mode? And can we see a picture of the UV map?

yafray only knew certain file types jpg i know for sure.

"Beginners Tutorial Guide"-too basic, didnt help :/ "Blender Basics"-didnt find, I`m afraid:/ Thx but looking fwd your feedback, again :/

P. S. Yafray "saw" the cube and rendered it as more or less white, it was not a problem with light, the cube simply seemed untextured.

do a google on yafray blender and bitmaps

I need just texture loading and mapping, not tweaking yafray. I did a google on blender texturing but I found nothing useful to me. Maybe you know a tutorial that dives deep enough into texturing to reach bitmaps and mapping [not like these I found "you have a cube on the left and you can see the texture mapping, and there is a true lot of possibilities";] but starts from a beginner level? The biggest problem I have with net tutorials is that they start from total zero, move not far upwards, or they start from a very advanced level and describe a particular problem beginners even don`t know about. I always get stuck between that very basic level ["make a cube and turn the material yellow"] and the advanced tweaking. Are the authors too lazy?! >:

i read it in a forum some were did you try using a .jpg?

Read in the "Beginners Tutorial Guide", Chapter 4, pag. 25, "Texture applied to a cube". And render with Blender, not with yafray, yafray is for advanced users because the lights must be tweaking.

Other good tutorials on "Blender-Cafe" site: http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/didacticiel-ang.html