Wow, thanks for the info.  I admit I did not read that.  Point taken.  Thanks for your diligence.

Stewer--I know you didn't direct your question to me; but yes, I do.  Does that make a difference.  I am running NIS 2005.

I too developed the same problem of rendering blank and emailed tech support about it.  They didn't offer much other than check the option "render as a separate process" in the preferences menu.  I've been to busy with work ever since to give that another try yet.

I think it's time I horn in on this, thefixer--you are right.  I thought about deleting it the other night, but what the hell, it's kinda amusing.  I'll leave it up to the moderators and Garreee is right, he did start it.

There' s no beating the rule of thirds.  There's something about that number--3.

I am totally impressed with the render improvements.  I posted a thread to that effect: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2677264.  In that piece that I am working on I have a heard of cows (50) which take 14 min. to load into P7 (I timed it).  I was hoping P7 would handle it as EF promised in their advertisements because P6 froze like a teenager trying to add 2 + 2 without a calculator.  To my amazement, it rendered in about 4 min.  Just for that alone I am pleased with the new version.  I've noticed a couple of minor bugs, nothing to annoying which I am sure will be fixed in time.  But for now, I am happy with it.

LOL--That's good stewer.

You can hoof on over to: http://vistainternetproducts.com/index.htm,  the link to Vista Products.  I think they are one of the only web sites that  don't offer downloads.  Snail-mail for CDs.  Lots of animals there.

You all have to stop these bad puns, cud I can't take it anymore.  ( oops--that's a bad one)

Nice thread,  I had to search around to find the content pallet.  It's a neat little expandable icon at the top of the "Library" pallet.  Question: as I understand you all, this only adds a path to a runtime or object; the entire runtime is not loaded is that correct?  I wouldn't want to load all my content, that would be a big memory hog, not mention load time.

Merci beaucoup

You know it's curious!  It didn't create a "e-frontier" directory.  I have an upgrade version of P6 which is installed in the default "curious labs" folder that it created.  I wonder if that has something to do with it--hmmmm!

Rainfeather, 

While researching monitor calibration. I recently read that adjusting the refresh rate of your monitor can sometimes eliminate the headaches that people get from staring at their monitors.  I read that a general rule of thumb is to set it one setting lower than the top recommended refresh rate of your particular monitor.  For instance; mine is a Samsung LCD with a refresh rate range of 60 to 75, so I set it at 70.  This made quite a difference in clarity.  Hope this helps as well.

This is one of the more interesting threads I have seen the forums.  Thanks, I've learned quite a bit, especially about "BrightSide"--what a fascinating technology.  I was going to wait about a year after "Vista" hit the market (to give time for everyone to update their software for it) to build a new machine.  After reading this info, I see I may have to wait a little longer for the video cards & monitors to catch up to "BrightSide" when it hits.  I hope I have the spare change for it then.

There is a setting on the "object properties" tabs for everything you have in a scene that allows you to turn on or off shadows for it specifically: or, you can do it for individual lights to totally eliminate shadows in a scene.  Just double click the item in the scene and the "properties" menu will pop up and uncheck "shadows on that tab.  In the case of lights, you can do the same by clicking on it's properties or you can manipulate the shadows intensity by the parameter dials.

I hope this answers your questions.

Larry-L

Hey, before this all morphs into some sort of religious rant: remember, all the person was doing is looking for a few items.