Hi, I'm having lots of trouble saving a lit object, is there some reason why the thumbnail only shows a radial light, and no object? Help?

Any light domes, or lights always show up as WF. They're invisible unless you have an item like the the "Jet Exhaust" which has volumetric material with the lights. I think I've seen a candle flame in the preview, it must the "Visible" box checked in the light properties.

They are grouped together with the objects, are they?

Judging by what Fran is rendering I think it's time to duck.......

ICM, WF? Is that short for WTF? The lights are just radials carefully positioned where I wanted them around the object. But when I select the object and then all the lights (there are only about 5 of them) then all that shows when I go to save the object as a "lit" object, i.e. WITH all the lights in position, all I see in the thumbnail is the last light selected. And that's even though - as you can see in the image above - the object is still selected. WHY??? and how do I get this right? Sans2012, Yes. They are grouped as a set of lights, but this (disappearance of the object and all lights bar one) happens when I try to group the lights group with the object and then save it as a new object - with lights.... (whimper) TheBryster, Eh? Does that mean it looks good, or just messy? .... Or lethal? gg

WF = Wireframe One thing to remember, when saving an object as a preset, you can customize the thumbnail view by changing the "thumbnail camera view" (for lack of a better word), if the thumbnail is not "looking" at what you want, or how you want. AS

AS, Yes, I know you can change the thumbnail view, but what I'm saying is that only the last light selected, even though everything else - other lights, AND the object - are still selected, only that last light shows up in the "Create/add" thumbnail. Why?

Is everything that is selected, grouped?

I think what Bryster means is that your WF look like WWII Atom bombs. As for your problem, you're already ahead of me.

<strong>bandolin</strong><br />
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Make sure the object is 'selected' and not the light. this happens to me sometimes when I change the lighting slightly and then forget to select the object I want to save to presets.....

Bandolin is wise!

ICM, Um... dunno, let me check. I went through it all again, selecting everything there, and once I had everything selected, it already showed up with a "U", no "G" - so I can't group it all - why won't it let me group it all? Bandolin, Atom bombs eh? Not quite. But it's not ready yet, needs more greeble - THEN you'll see what it is. Zhann, The object IS selected, as the wireframe above shows, it's all red - but I'm not presented with an option to group - no "G" - and I don't understand why not. I've tried clicking on "U" to ungroup hoping to be able to then group again, but I just don't get a "G". What's going on?

Sometimes you can click on the button under the "A", which is "Link to parent" which will allow you to Group objects and Groups of groups. Be careful to back up just before you do that Sometimes it changes the heirarchy of groups and can change Booleaned shapes. Simplest method I've found is dragging a marquee selection around all the objects, also different sets of groups with out the danger of changing their boolean properties. One small note here, sometimes it's difficult to get a clear area to drag around with out effecting neighboring objects. The fix on that is to lock those neighbors. I know it seems like a lot of stuff just to get your thumbnails to show, but after a a few times you won't even give a second thought, it'll just come natural. ICM

Fran do you also have the light selected with your objects? I was reading somewhere(in RWB I think?) that you can't save an object to presets if it includes a light or the camera with it. That may be why you are not getting the 'G' to group them and save.

Zhann, Oh no! That's exactly what I wanted to do, save the model WITH the lights. But since encountering this problem I've removed the lights from the selected objects, and I STILL can't group it, and only one primative shows in the thumbnail. ICM, I don't really care how much fiddling this entails if I can only figure out the problem and solve it, since I have come across this sort of problem once before; I saved an object I'd made, but only one primative showed in the thumbnail - and unfortunately when I went to add that creation to another file, only the primative that showed in the thumbnail arrived in the new document. I will try your suggestion.

ICM, Unfortunately, neither of your suggestions worked. The first, certainly did change things a lot,^^^^ see image above! Thank heavens for "Undo"! The second suggestion didn't change things but neither did it bring the "G" into view. (Oh, I did lock the lights and the tiny ship, as I didn't now want to include them, I just want to save the whole of the main object.) Any more suggestions anyone? Please?

Okay, if you want to save it with the lighting you will probably have to settle for just saving the scene file. Then when you want to use it, you'll need to import it into the scene you want to use it in. Alternately, you could email the scene file to some of us and we can try it to see if it's your version of Bryce that's wonky or it's the objects and lighting that's causing the problem....

I'm quite happy to email the bryce 5.5 file to anyone who can receive it. I've given up on saving with the lighting, now I just want to be able to save the finished object, but I can't if I can't group it. And I can't group it.... Help? Any offers to look at the *.br5 file?

S'okay - I finally managed it. Using that Link to Parent bit. Maybe I just had to turn the computer off and open bryce again? Worked at last anyway. Thanks to all for your help.