Well I use the grouper tutorial now (it made such a difference) but I don't know of any other tutorial like it. Basically if you put a transmap in the trans section of the shader you are working with, there will still be artifacts, so by following it through like the grouper tutorial says, and use the transmap applied over the entire layer panametrically, it masks out the transparent areas, thus removing the artifacts. Once I got used to the concept of what the grouper tutorial was doing, it has been very easy to replicate. I love using grouper also because it cuts down on the number of objects, which is a real boon for me since I tend to do multi-figure scenes and each character had way too many pieces (just the fingers and toes alone made up 60 objects) I hope that is of some help. It really works great when you get the hang of it. JDexter