Yep, that's about what I got. LOL I just deleted the water Trans map, which is just a blank image. Then it renders. The final image looks pretty mediocre. Also, the tree renders REEEAAALLL SSLLOOWW. All of that transparency I guess.

Vue-4.12 (with all of the latest patches) works great on my system using OGL LightWave-7.5c also works flawlessly on this machine using OGL. Win2K Pro (SP3) PIV 2.4ghz Asus P4PE Mobo 2gig DDR RAM Radeon 9000 Pro On-board Sound Card (Sound Max) On board NIC SCSI-3 controllers (3) & Drives (7)

Attached Link: http://www.knucks3dstuff.com

Sasha: I'm both a LightWave-7.5c(LW) user and a registered Vue (4.12) user. I have the same questions about importing Vue terrains and procedural textures. Some LW plugins can operate within the LW rendering engine (Sasquach, Combustion, etc.) I'm wondering if VP is doing this as well, or, as you suggested, VP is converting the Vue procedural textures to images (.bmp, .tif, or whatever). As you said, if they are converting to image maps, that would greatly reduce VP's acceptance by most of the LW crowd. If "VP-to-LW" retains Vue's procedural texturing, VP should be a big hit amongst the LW crowd. If not, I, and many others, will not buy it. While I obviously can't speak for "ALL" LW users, I can say that most of them would prefer to work within their chosen app, be it LightWave, Max, Maya, or whatever. If Vue forces users to do some things in VP (outside their chosen app) many users will not accept this. What I'd like to see, is some examples of Vue scenes rendered in LightWave. Or at least have a demo available to see how VP works in LW. I don't know of any LW user that's willing to buy a program or plugin that they can't test, or at least "see" how it will work. Remember, we're talking about what amounts to a "terrain generating / texturing import" accessory to these high-end programs. I have little wish to setup and render a scene in Vue, only to have to composite it in AE, if I can do everything natively in LW. No matter how good the hype, camera, light, and motion matching is seldom a perfect match. I've experienced this with both "World Builder Pro" and "World Construction Set". There always seems to be a slight mismatch. Any time that a job can be done in a single app, time and energy is usually saved. The $299.00 or $599.00 price range is not a problem. Many LW plugins cost more than that. I, for one, would rather wait for a demo and pay full price, than buy early and get an app that may not do what I want. As tempting as VP looks, I won't spend anything until I can "see" some VP-to LW results. I think that lots of other users are similarly inclined. And to whomever asked about rendering times, the high-end apps (usually) render many times faster than Vue (or Bryce, or Poser) for the same basic scene. Another reason why most users would prefer to work in their high-end app. Just my take on it Knuckle (Knuck) Martin

Attached Link: http://www.knucks3dstuff.com

I modeled the wrenches in LightWave 6.5b., exported them as .obj files, and rendered them in Bryce 4. I purposely chose polygon sections that would be "flat" and those that would be "smooth". I played with the smoothing angle of each of the surfaces (in Bryce) to get them to blend from rounded to perfectly flat. The scene has 12 lights. 6 for each wrench. I moved and adjusted each of the lights to both highlight the "chrome", and remove harsh shadows. The bump maps, scratch maps and the brand logo I made in Photoshop6. As a side note; all of the lettering was done with polygons, not bump maps. As for the nebula images, yes, they were taken from the web. As far as I know, they are all "public domain" images, and can be freely distributed. I collected the ones that I liked best and posted them, just to save others the leg work of hunting them down on their own. If anyone knows of any copyright limitations, please let me know, and I'll remove those images. NASA is publically funded, so just about any images that they take are usually public domain. PS: Glad that you liked the pic'. Knuck Knuckle Martin mailto:knuck5150@rcn.com http://knucks3dstuff.com

As a long time Bryce user and having also modeled with LightWave for a number of years, I would have to agree with some of the previous posts. The LightWave modeler is one of the best available (at any price). The manuals are an excellent place to start. They will give you the a basic understanding of how the interface works, and where the basic modeling tools are. "After" learning the basics covered in the manuals, you may want to do some web tutorials and/or look into books or instructional tapes available. The LightWave interface will become more familiar with time and experience. Their Modeler program is very powerful, with literally hundreds of tools and scripts to learn to use. To learn the interface (will) require a serious investment of time on your part. If you're willing to invest the time, you will take away a skills that will allow you to model just about anything that you can think of. Knuckle "Knuck" Martin