Some more beginners questions: The boat was modeled in TURBOCAD V7 Pro and originally rendered in Lightworks (which is the default renderer for Turbocad) saved as .3ds with materials applied as bitmaps such as wood and others as glass etc. It looks nice in TCAD. The colors shown here are the assigned layers colors in Turbocad . The realistic Lightworks materials did not come in with 3ds only the layers colors came in - which could just as easily have been all black or whatever. Id like to get the bitmaps and the glass etc. in from the other program OR BETTER be able to apply Vue materials etc. to the model. When in Vue, I cannot select the individual parts of the model to apply individual materials. They are grouped and I dont think TCAD offers any options. What am I missing here? Also, can I get a shadow on the ocean bottom under the boat? And Finally, how would I ge some little wavelets that show tthe position of the boat on the water??? Thanks very much, MUD