First of all, I'm a registered user. (see message below) Don't want people to think I'm a warez boy. Second, I looked through all the tutorials and didn't see one one lighting lamps, windows, etc. (might be a worthy tute for those inclined) Now to the question: I want to light the street lamp you see. The lamp breaks down to various objects...one of which is "globes". So, I edited them and made them glow (a bit) and turned off the thingie about casting shadows. Chose a material and OK'd. Added a light (page 78 seems to indicate a point light is the best choice). I did a link parent thingie to the globes but it put it in the middle (between the globes). So, that sucks. Otherwise, it would be easy to place lights that way. So, I moved it manually to the left globe. In short, I've done all I can do (except for doing a bit of color changing to get a better light color, perhaps). So, does this look OK? If not, can someone help me with a few suggestions on how to make it look better? Finally, from the other pic I supplied, you can see the streetlamp has only a few tiny red lines to suggest its outline. It makes it really hard to place lights because you can't really see whre the globes are. IT is hit and miss, so to speak. I loaded the OBJ without any textures (and just added a dark grey from materials). How can I get the lamp post to show up better in the preview panes? It's going to make it real tough for a congested scene if only a few red streaks show up. I have accelerated hardware chosen as well as turned on open GL. (turning on open GL shows the Vue generated items as grey shaded...that's why I leave it on...otherwise I get wireframe.) SO, any suggestioins here? Thanks for your time!

As referred to in the message above.

My very own opinion is that you should not make a glowing material AND having a lens flare on your light. If, as I suppose your globe is supposed to be translucent plastic, keep the glowing and uncheck lens flare (for a transparent material, like glass, uncheck glowing and keep lens flare). Then, if as I supposed, it's a translucent globe, your lamp should cast SOFT shadows. That will increase your render time, but add to realism... And, for a translucent globe, light is never really white. You should make it a little yellowed. Argentium Thri'ile

While working on the street lamp (after you may change it, because it slows down Vue), go to FILES->OPTIONS and bring the instant draw slider to 100% (BETTER).

Map your globes with colored glass (I used yellow). Add a point light to each globe (I used power 10). You may try out if you want a volumetric light or not.

Does this help?

:-)Guitta

Yeah, Tks. I will try (as soon as my wife wakes up). Also, can anyone help with Msg #2 in this thread that I asked about?

For "2 I said to bring up the BETTER slider:-).

Oh, gebe...I need to be slapped this early in the morning. (grin) I guess I "skimmed" it too fast. Now that you mention it, I think I changed that setting back during the "Harvest" contest I considered entering because I had about 20 alien heads in rows (to be harvested...ugh) and the preview re-draw was killing me...in the millions of polys. Thanks again for help with SAMS3D lamp post I downloaded for free from WWW.SAMS3D.COM.