Hi all, I've got a question that's some what of an oxymoron; I need a transparent object to recieve a shadow! You've got to ask why (hehe). Well, as I've stated before I come from a background in Lightwave. In that program if you want to use a real world picture and place a 3d object on its appearent surface you use a process called front projection. This is a widely used technique used by all the major 3D software companies. This is where the question really starts. Appearently, Vue5I doesn't have that ability (at least I havn't found it). So as a work around I thought of making a transparent object, to apply an ecosystem to, which would match a photo's perspective. The only snag comes when you render the object the shadows are transmitted through the transparent object (as they should). Now the trick! Is there a way to make a transparent object recieve a shadow? I believe this is a worthy question because of the endless possibilities of adding ecosystems to existing scenes. Gary Poole Keep pushin' those pixels and tappin' to the code!