thx fr the link, flib. on that page (Galactic 3D Models) there's a picture of the earth on the left and a moon on the right, but the link under both of 'em goes to earth.zip. fortunately (?), their directory structure is insecure, so I was able to get the correct file. will letcha know. in the meantime, the atmosphere texture goes in a transparent sphere concentric with the earth, and ya gotta use displacement to get those bumps like in their picture. oops, no, scratch that last. moon.lwo comes in with displacement already applied. just slap on the jpg and bob's yer uncle. turn off texture filtering, normals forward, minimum displacement bounds .01 approx.