Thank you sooooo much.  Off to check that and see what I get.

As far as scaling it down, I could do that, but when I imported it into DAZ Studio it was the correct size, so if I scale down too much and save the new size, then it'll be tiny when I get it into DS, but I'll play with it and see.

Let me go check what the settings are, and I'll get back to you and let you know.  :-)

OK, there's nothing in the scene, other than the rickshaw, 3 lights, a camera and the floor plane that's default in Blender.  My default setup scene has the 3 lights and camera on the 20th layer, away from any objects I may be working on so I don't accidently select them as well when I "select all".  Just keeps them out of the way, so to speak.

As far as version, I haven't upgraded from 2.61 yet.  I know, I should, but I don't get to play in Blender often so I haven't gotten around to it.

As far as the original model mesh mirrored, I have no idea.  I believe, IIRC, I had downloaded it from one of the freepository forums on the old DAZ forums (before they updated the site last May), so I don't recall who the creator was.  I only know that when I look at it through WinExplorer it's dated 2006, so it's old.

If I can find a link to the download on the old archived forums and it's still active, I'll post a link here.  Other than that, I don't recall the usage rights, so even though I want to map and texture it, I have no plans of playing with the mesh at all.  If you know of a way I can check in Blender to see if the mesh was mirrored, let me know how to check and I will.

Edited To Add:  I found the original post on the old DAZ forum, but the download link is no longer good as the creator's site is no longer online --> http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=39515

The modeller's name was Couerl, and at the time he was a DAZ PA, but he no longer is, so have no idea how to get in touch with him.

~Whoa~ Absent yourself from the forums for a whille, and look what you almost missed.

Thanks for the great link.  :-)

Quote - Thank you.  It is good to know a render engine will be included in a near future version.

This is definitely good news.  I look forward to a good render engine.

Quote - Pegasus comes with several tutorial videos, in Flash format.

Yes, and the audio quality is so bad I can hardly hear anything he's saying with my sound turned all the way up.  I'd like to see some online non-video tutorials for Pegasus, but I doubt there'll be any at this rate.  :-(

OIC!  Thanks again for your help Touchwood.

Thanks Touchwood. I usually download zip files instead of .exe files when there's a choice, and I found the config folder with the 2 text files and the startup.blend file, so I'm set as far as those go. I'm just wondering about some of the files I found in my 2.54 > Scripts > ui folder. They seem to be duplicates of files with the same name except the extension is .pyc instead of .py and the date of the files seems to be within days of the custom startup.blend file in the config folder. For example, 2 of them are named space_userpref.pyc and space_userpref_keymap.pyc. I did do some key mapping when I first started playing with the new version, mostly because I use a pen and tablet and a lot of the included/default settings were for the middle button on a 3-button mouse. I'm thinking it might be prudent to backup the .pyc files in that folder, just in case.

OK, I downloaded 2.56a and want to upgrade my 2.54 with it.  That said, the download page at blender.org states the following:

"IMPORTANT NOTE: Before uninstalling Blender 2.55 Beta with the uninstaller, make sure you make backup copies of your production files, configuration files and custom scripts."

OK, I know what my production files are (they're in a separate folder) and I don't believe I installed any custom scripts (and I certainly haven't written anything), but what exactly are the "cofiguration" files?  I scanned through each of the folders in my 2.54 installation and don't see any file(s) with a name that gives me an idea that it's a config file.

What I did notice, however, when comparing my installation folders with the unzipped 2.54 download folders, there are a number of files that have a more current date than the date I installed it and I'm wondering if those are the files I should be backing up.  There are at least 20 or more of them right in the main Blender 2.54 folder, and there may be more in the subfolders.

Any suggestions/insights would be greatly appreciated as I don't necessarily want to have to go through UI changes again when I upgrade to 2.56a.

Thanks in advance.

Quote - I'm quite liking 256... just need to figure out how to do certain things like materials and stuff, but there's a really good tutorial site here.

I love that site, and have tried a couple of the tutorials.  In fact, I recently finished the PDF tutorial to model a castle.  It's the first model I've completed using ver. 2.54.

Robin, if you haven't checked out that particular tutorial, there's a second part that deals with texturing the castle, and he goes into quite a bit of detail on how to set the texture on each section depending on whether it's supposed to tile vertically or horiztonally, etc.  It might give you some ideas on how to work with materials, even though it's specific to that particular model.

The only thing missing is bump mapping, which he doesn't go into.  I haven't figured out how to add a bump map in 2.54, though I can always do so when I import the castle and texture into my rendering software.

Quote - 2.56 is still only a Beta, so I'd install to a seperate directory and leave 2.49 alone, as various script based things may not have been converted to the new Python API.

This is exactly what I did when I downloaded and installed 2.54.  I wanted to play with (and get accustomed to) the new UI, but I still wanted to be able to have full rein over Blender, so left 2.49b installed.  It won't hurt to have them both installed on the same hard drive as long as they are in 2 distinct directories.

I haven't upgraded past 2.54, so maybe I'll take a look at 2.56a and see.  I still have 2.49b installed in any case, but I guess I haven't been using Blender enough in the past few weeks to see any cricital issues in 2.54, so I'm glad you guys and gals are keeping us up-to-date and informed.  

Welcome back Chris, it's so good to hear from you directly.  Just keep recovering nicely, and we'll see you back here full time when you're 100% again.  

Sorry to hear you're not well, but happy to hear you're on the mend.

Happy holiday to your and yours.

Thank you very much for the link. 

Quote - When I'm creating promos, Vex lights are my goto lights.  Renders are done quickly with a professional look.

Where would I find the Vex lights?  Are they here in the RMP?