Thanks guys, I can live with can't be done, but I just wanted to hear it from someone else.

Save the light wave files individually, and do the boolean operation in Bryce. You can apply different mats to the different booleans in Bryce. I don't know if it's the specific solution you're looking for, but it will work.

You know what? I'm going to do that. Just to see how many hits it gets. Give it a day or so. I'll think of it as a performance piece where everyone is invited. ;)

I think that the thumbnail is the marketing piece. It depends on the image, but I try to make it as intersting as possible. Sometimes it's the whole image, other times it's part of it. I usually start with a 200 x 200 square, and look for a good crop, if that fails, then I crop it by eye, and if that still fails, you get the while thing. Like Kate, I get annoyed when I click on a thumb that is a minute detail. Usually it's because the thumb looks so cool, I need to see it, and I find out that the cool part is just a little part of the corner and the rest of the image sucks. I want the hits, but I don't want to deceive the visitor. If were intersted in deception, I'd make a thumbnail from images obtained from one of the many porn sites, blur out the naughty bits and check off the nudity box. That's a guarantee you'll get hits.

I have friends that teach TTU in Lubbock. I'm in RI, the largest state in the Union. Of course, most of it is underwater....

I guess I wouldn't need metaballs if it were a terrain. I could remodel this out of primitives and altitude render that. I'll have to tinker with it.

Ah, Pontigary, indeed. In fact, that is exactly what this trick does. But there are some people that hadn't thought to do that. (I hadn't thought to do that until I found this flip trick, and saw the results, and that was years, I'm embarrassed to say!)

well done. I dare say it looks perfect.

Agent Smith, that's more or less what I'm trying to do, but it doesn't seem to work so well with metaballs. I'm starting to think it's a metaball issue. The real reason I wanted it as a lattice is so I could more easily snap it to the ground, and to create the seam created by the molding process without adding a terrain to the booleans. I also like the user simplicity of one [exportable] object vs. 31 metaballs, 4 cones, and 2 spheres. I was able to get similar results to your sphere while using a sphere, but not with metaballs. The metaballs seem to render flat.

That's exacly what I did. I tried both altitude and distance renders hoping for better results, and neither one works (above is the altitude mask). It renders the ball parts as flat gray, and there should be a gradient. Maybe it's a bug in the Mac version. Or maybe it's a bug with the metaballs. Or maybe it's a different bug altogether, I don't know. I've noticed that metaballs don't always mask properly. I've tried it with the metaballs grouped and ungrouped (what I've found to be the bug with masking metaballs) and still, I get the same results.

I agree. I think the whole 1-10 system is flawed by design, and unless I forget, I turn it off on my images. I've never seen anyone get a 3. It's either 1, 9, or 10. (and the 1s are few an far between.) I've also noticed that the negative folk tend to be the transients. They're not the regulars they don't show a lot of work. Maybe they're evaluating the site. I think it's the anonymity of it too. If it were a brick and mortar gallery, half of them wouldn't even have come in the first place. I don't know if it's jealousy, it may be shock. For example, when I graduated high school as one of best artists in the school, I went on to art school. Wow, that was culture shock. I went from the top of the ladder right down to the middle of the pack. Everyone there was the best or among the best in their high schools, and now they were all in the same place. It's much stiffer competition, and some people will thrive on it and work to be better, others will leave and go back to their happy place where they are the best again. I do however find that in the interest of not offending someone, I don't offer help. It's a judgement call I make. I evaluate the artist, and determine whether or not they are likely to receive criticism well. It's too bad, because I often wont help the people that need it most. But then, the people that listen to others' commentary are those who need the least help! It's a vicious cycle. Well, that's my ramble. In short, I agree with you. But criticism is difficult both to give and to receive, and in an online community that's open to all, it's inevitable that there will be people that can do neither very well.

Erlik, it's probably that whole 256 shades of gray issue. Normally, that's more grey than your eye will ever see, but in the case of the Terrain Editor, it's just not enough!