Quote - Generally speaking when something I've built renders up black like that the first thing I do is reverse the normals.  So far it's cured the problem every time.

Yeah Slinger, that would be the first guess, but I know the normals weren't reversed as I am anal about my models. I always analyze the direction of normals in Rhinocerous before they are ever exported for UVmapping and Poserizing. But nontheless I double checked the normals in the models I was having problems with and as I figured they were okay. Then I tried triangulating them, welding them, etc etc.. all the normal stuff hehe, but to no avail. Of course it urned out to be a FireFly issue in the end, but I had already wasted about 3 hours which bit into my project time which should have been finished last night. I just finshed it this morning thank goodness. No harm no foul though, but I am starting to hate P7 and FireFly :u)