theres sometimes another way out. wanna learn lightwave but dont got the bucks. the guys at LW figured this too so they came up with INSPIRE. its the same interface as LW and they claim can be upgrade to full LW. i think its around $300-$400. and yes its as complicated as heck. i use some of its features to make models and such but fall back to my raydream 5.5 for the render dgaff

hi tkane this may not help.(though i hope it does). i had a simular problem with the drag & dropping of textures in raydream 5.5. i learned that after selecting the model i had to goto the shader section and add the standard blank red texure. after that the model would accept any texure easily. if this not so in you case maybe just simple trial & error with the load options might help. failing this i'd go for a straight out conversion. the program "crossroads" is a fave of mine. hope some thing in this helps dgaff