Ok it was a short silent video but the guy demonstrated, in Metaseq, right off the bat how to make the mess that I'm making. 

It had to do with perspective. He had lin, fac & Img selected but not 'Fr' .....what's an 'Fr'?

You might like these, airflames. They're all Metseq video tuts. The one I dload and watched was simply called 'Knife.'

http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=15133&start=15&sid=96f55fb1f9fc9649cb6270b2e2420404