lol, tell me about it, that is why i hassel the book store people every couple of weeks, like a junkie for his fix. i know it's sad! have a good one!!! eric

well it is funny, my choices for school are either digital media or architecture. whiche ever program i get accepted into. i am optimistic about the 7/11's though so i might get all of them...hehe! if you want to check out some of the programs, i know most of them have personal learning editions, like, softimage xsi, maya (the water mark is hideous), and houdini (but that would not run on my system for some reason). worth the download just to check them out, see if you can learn it ok or not. i tried wings 3d, i could not figure it out to well. oh now that i think about it, digit magazine is giving away a version of carrera studio 1.1. the magazine is expencive but they do hook you up with some great software, i have already gotten world builder 2.3 pro, and a couple others. these are full versions with no limitations, not to mention all the demos and other stuff they have. here is the link to their site. http://www.digitmag.co.uk/freesoftware/ check it out you will not be disappointed. you can order the mag online or find it at a barnes and noble.

yeah i was just thinking about that myself as a matter of fact. i have played around with 3ds before from a demo version, and a friend of mine has maya that i use some times. in fact that is how i made some of my models. maya would be my first choise, but even with the discount it is close to a grand, and frankly i don't have that type of money laying around. so i should say that it is a toss up between max and c4d. decisions, decisions, i guess the cash flow will make the choice for me. i'll have to go knock over some 7/11's for program money! lol!!! the version of c4d they have here in the market place, is that a boxed verison, or a download? the price on that is not bad at all.

well that did it, snaked a stick of ram from the p's computer and all seems to be well. mokba, just for shits and giggles try testing your memory. microsoft has a good one available here. http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp the test should keep running until you stop it. with the bad ram it would freeze up half way throuhg the second test. with the new ram it just kept on testing and vue is running fine for now (touch wood). it never hurts to try and if all is well then that is one piece you can take out of the equation. well, happy hunting to ya! if i can offer any assistance, advice, tips or what ever just let me know! eric

nish, wait for the new p4 extreme, it is going to have a new l3 cache with i think a meg. going to be geared towards gamers, but i am sure it will do wonders with 3d. as for the games, i'm gonna hold you to that...lol! i want to start a new box myself after the holidays, try to hook up a render farm for when i break down and by 3ds max 6 when it is released (thank you student discount!!!), but that is me pipe dreaming. mokba, i will have to try the drivers again, when i did install them i had the monitor hooked up through a kvm switch between two pc's. i nixed the switch, so i will have to try them again. maybe that could help as i keep getting driver errors, hopefully that will fix it. well i am off to try another stick of mem. wish me luck! eric

mokba, well i tried to play with the opengle settings in vue and no luck, i was able to get further into the material editor then i have in the past couple of days. well at least i am making some progress. with the 3.8 drivers, does your screen flicker at all? mine would flash and flicker when starting windows. so for now i think i installed the drivers off of the cd, not sure though, i have been making so many changes over the last couple of days i cannot remember. eric

nish well, i assume it does (but we all know what happens when you assume). in the control panel it has settings for opengl, i guess it does. all i know is, i switched from nvidia geforce 4 and it made a huge difference. i can run games with all the settings maxed @ 1280x1024, full aa and af, and they run great! are you thinking about an upgrade? if so wait, they have two coming out, the 9600 pro and the 9800 pro that is going to include a free copy of halflife 2 (if you're into gaming that is, if not just send the game to me....lol). i will try to find more specifics as to what the modle will be if you would like!

nish, never hurts to try, right? most memory manufacturers have life time warranties, who knows, you got nothing to lose! thanks i hope to get back in the game soon, i have a bunch of new ideas i want to try! have a great day!!! eric

mokba, what drivers are you using for your card? is it the 3.8 that they just came out with? the opengl combos that you were trying, was that in the display panel or in vue? oh and the usb 2.0 thing was a failure, it started to crash after that as well. a crash analysis from microsoft pointed to the memory, i my case at least. i will tinker with the opengl settings and see what comes up. thanks for the tip, i hope it does the trick eric

thanks kazi, this time vue can't be blamed. as it turns out it is a hardware issue involving the memory. major bummer! thank god for mushkin's excellent warranty, new mem is on the way. i should be vuein in no time......hopefully any way! thanks again for the assist, much apreciated!! eric

mokba, well i played around with the device manager, disabling things that i did not need. turns out when i turn off the usb 2.0 controller vue works fine. try to disable things in the device manager that you don't need, start vue, then enable them one at a time until it crashes again. this is what i did to figure it out, of course other programs are crashing, but at least i have an idea where the problem may be. check it out, what is the worst that could happen? good luck!

very well done! congratulations agiel! it truly is an excellent picture! eb

thank you thomas!!! it looks fantastic!!! can't wait to use it in my next picture. i just wish i could return the favor and repay the community myself, lord knows i owe a lot! some day i will, you can count on it! thank you again, it is definitly appreciated. eric

thank you sacred rose! i will go through your tutrials tonight. the forest and campfire tutorials will come in handy, can't wait to give them a try! thanks again for the assistance! eb

wish i could help you there, i'm still looking for the button that will create my latest!