Cool, its like a contest! My turn! Ok, Go at it from the other direction. The transparency dials in the Materials editor determine the amount of transparency that will be applied to any material when rendered. The dials however, will apply the same amount of transparency to the entire material. Transparency maps are black & white images laid out the same as the texture maps, which inhibit the effect of these transparency dials based on the brightness at any given location on the transmap. The lighter the area on the transparency map, the less the effect of the transparency dial setting is applied at that particular location on the model. Full black and the dials have their full effect. 100% white and the dials have no effect. This allows you to apply differing amounts of transparency to different areas within a single Surface Material. The Max and Min transparency dial settings refer respectivly to the thick parts or thin parts of the model from the current viewing angle. For example, to set the Transparency Dials for a Crystal Ball model, you would set the Max value high and the Min value low to get a sphere that was clear in the thick center and more opaque at the thin edges where refraction would make the Crystal Ball look more opaque. To set the transparency for a Snowball, you would do the opposite. The Snowball would look more transparent at the thin edges(high Trans Min value) and more opaque at the thick center (low Trans Max value). blah blah blah... more confused than ever, right?