bagginsbill: it worked!

your instructions were very clear. thank you.

i have a couple of details to work out. rendering over black puts black into the hidden channel. i have had great difficulty processing png's and most graphics programs don't do that well. i have my own graphics library but i don't know how to do png's. i found a utility that crops the images in batch mode. the only thing that works well for making thumbnails for menus is easythumbs, but it reveals the hidden channel so that the thumbnails have a black background. i was able to render over the light-gray i use and i tried white, but the shadow has a blue cast to it. i can live with the black background. it's not a show stopper.

the other thing i am working on is converting the 1000+ pz3 files i have. i pretty well have that worked out. being a lazy programmer, i always like to get the computer to do it while i sleep.

i was worried that the render time might increase. i haven't timed it but it appears that there is little or no difference.

this has been a great success and without your help, i would never have guessed what to do or even how to begin. again, thank you.

you said in the other post that "we build business rules calculations using nodes". that's something i have never heard of. my career has mostly involved business apps. it would be interesting to know more about that and what your educational background is.