Thanks Eric, I did try exporting in a few different formats. Lightwave seems very picky and I get really frustrated having so many problems with such an expensive application.. It seems like Carrara excells at many things that Lightwave falls short in...like being very stable and predictable. I posted because I thought there might be something I was doing wrong in the export / import process...The main reason I wanted to export the text is becase LW has more shader options (at least in my limited experience) and it renders quicker. If I had more shader options and could render quicker in Carrara I would just use that for text..If anyone else has an ideas please post it. thanks