Thanks Chipp.  could you post the steps that you did to get those 2 results and i can play around with them  a little more to see what i get.

As for the first question let me see if i can make it clearer for you.

the top part of the image is what i am going for.  the corner effect but i want it on all 4 corners.  I am using the settings in the 2nd part of the image which is mapping to only 1 edge of a cube.  in order to make it appear on all sides i have to create about 8 of those to get them ovn each side.  I tried having it mapped where the trans texture i was using was maped to both sides (3rd image) but when i resized the cube it made it not look right.  Too much stretching.  My question is can i get that effect with the Grid modeler and if yes then how can i get it done properly.