This really doesn't look like your typical beaver pond. I just think beaver ponds aren't much to look at. The bottom is muddy and covered in dead plant matter. I wanted something colorful and contrasting. I'll post the photoshopped image soon. R.

I am having no problems and very impressed with my new eMac G$ 1.25ghz with 1ghz or RAM. The biggest, little computer I've ever owned. But my 500mhz G3 laptop still is my computer of choice... it's just so cool and packed with enough power to model all day long.

Thanks for the feedback, my wife isn't much of a critique. "Nice" is about all I get out of her. Yeah, I have to watch what I say about this here beaver, half of what I type gets the edit. I'm thinking about filming a creek by the house and running the quicktime over a plane or cube as a rotoscope... then the pebble texture under. The movie would have to be semi-transparent...but it would give me annimated water. It seems to me that there are two schools of thought with many of these images. Some 3Drs feel a scene should have objects and textures that are 100% computer generated - hand made. The other school uses photos, scans, digital movies, etc. to populate their scenes. What do people think about this observation? R.

Wow! Thank You for putting in the time to explain this - to everyone. I'll copy it and hold on to it if any questions like this come up in the future. You explain yourself very well. Thanks again. R.

Thank you everyone, HK, todd71,mateo for all your help. I'll give these suggestions a try. The Photoshop script is intersting to me. I've always wanted to learn more about automating Photoshop. HK, can you direct me to a site on scripting tips for Photoshop? Mateo, thanks for the rainbow tidbits. I'm working on a 3d library of Alaskan fish, maybe animals, if I can take enough time out from the rest of my busy life to model them all. Would an animated gif work in Flash? I'm also on a Mac and I can create animated gifs with GifBuilder, they come out ok for web work, but I want to create TV quality movies in Flash, for short video clips of maps with trout, salmon, etc. moving on maps... Anyway, thanks for the help. On a personal note, I just heard I might get a side job driving a pick-up truck from Anchorage, AK (where I live - just outside of Anchorage in a town called Eagle River) to the North Slope. All along the beautiful drive are fishing rivers and streams full of rainbow trout and grayling. Also bears, moose, caribou, all almost every wild Alaskan animal you can imagine dot the tundra. I'll be taking my video camera for home movies and reference images.

I had to do just what brainmuffin suggested, minus lights and camera, just the model with bones and I was able to add as many as I wanted. I just deleted the light and camera once I imported the .car file into my scene. I'd also like to see the feature in Carrara 4. I'd also like to be able to work with the trees without waiting forever. Has anyone made trees without leaves, then used a material over spheres? R.

Thanks for your comments. Good luck with your model. I enjoy making models. I don't do much with them after that, but I had fun while I did it. It's like a puzzle, putting it together, seeing better ways to do it all the time. Each model I make, I leave it knowing how to do it better next time. This one is a simple shape design. I just made a bunch of shapes and slapped them together. It has bones, but the first one had joints. I miss the joints... I really miss the joints. I'll look up the bit on morph targets. R.

A reply to myself, how lame is that? :) I played around and found if I duplicate one half of a model (symetric) and then sellect the two sides I'd like to join, then just LOFT... ugh. I don't know how many times I've linked each vert. I'm such a dork. I guess I like doing things the hard way. Rs.

Both the hover car and the prehistoric rhino are great models. How did you get the Rhino so smooth? Is it a metaball model? I like the pimp hover car.

Thank you pogmahone. I just spaced out Viewpoint. I've seen Webexport before but didn't think to use it. Wow, I think that will work for me. I did find a few JavaScripts that let users view 3d models, but I couldn't get it to texture the model. I'm not a JavaScript programmer. Thanks.

http://www.easypano.com/pinfo_mw.html Except this is not the look I'm looking for. I'm hoping to find free software...I can hope, can't I?

Apple advertises their computers online so you can view it 360 degrees around, like a fly around.