Beveling can help get more 'organic' images instead of a hard '3D' one. It has to do with the light catching the edges that helps define the edge in 'real' life. As far as how to do what lindnan1 says, start with your favorite 2D paint program, (Photoshop, PaintShopPro, etc.) and then create your text using black letters on a white background WHITHOUT aniti-aliasing. Save the file as a tif or jpg. In Carrara, duplicate the shader you are using for the stone block. From the mini-menu at the top of the shader, change your shader to a multi-channel mixer. Your former shader will be used for 'source 1' while 'source 2' and 'blender' will be empty. Change 'source 2' into a single-channel shader, and make the channel be transparent. Set this channel to a value, and the value to 100% For the blender, set it to a texture map, and import yout painted text file you saved earlier in Photoshop. Make sure that the settings are NOT set to tile. Set your rendering to Transparency - ON. If you have any lights passing trough your object, (shadow cones, light behind the object, important shadows,) set Light Through Transparency - ON. Your stone block should now have a hole in it for every letter in your text. With this technique, you can make many fake boolean shapes, without the hassle of extra geometry. However, you also don't get the benefits of it either! Hope this helps!