Cool.  I know where that tab is, but I didn't know that use for it vis the hair (or anything else).

Turns out, my renders were being slow (and crashing) because of a problem with the floor in the scene: I used a PP version rather than a P5 version under the mistaken believe that PP was the newer/better program.  (Thought it was between 5 & 6, instead of between 4 & 5, which it is.)

It kept looking for a bump map, which wasn't where it expected -- in the textures file.  So it just kep looking.  It wouldn't let me remove the floor and replace it (on advice from the creator); the program would just crash.  So I took the texture bump jpg, duplicated it, and then renamed the copy to the file the PP floor expected to find.

Which, apparently, it did.

Suddenly, no crashes and vastly faster renders.  Of course, I took the advice about 2 threads and such, too.

So, now it's running fine, I've got a setting for the render I can live with, and I learned a lot, too.  The final result looks a lot like the one I last posted -- though that's a close-up of the image I intend to use as a cover.

And I learned a heck of a lot.

Thanks to you and all the other fine folks who chimed in.

The Renderosity boards are the best!

 Stephen D. Sullivan

www.stephendsullivan.com

Adventure guaranteed.  (Monsters optional.)