Heck, while were at it, how about a formula texture. Formula textures are similar to formula objects, only instead of using u and v to generate x, y and z values, you use u, v, x, y and z to generate red green blue values. floor(x) is a handy function, basically it return the next lowest interger. For example, if x=4.317, floor(x) = 4, and x-floor(x)= 0.317. I use this to keep rgb values between 0 and 1, and it's an easy way to make stripes. ceil(x) works in a similar way.