CompuServe Messages

I've just been reading your chapter on Laser Burn-In in the 3D Studio Special Effects book (nice effect BTW!) and have a quick question (if such a thing exists in 3DS <vbg>) for you if you can spare the time to answer me. I want to use the effect w/ my own text (ultimately I'd like to burn things other than text also) and am trying to figure out a quick'n'easy way to make the opacity map .flc to mask the text holes in AniPro. I'm having trouble figuring out how to associate the text objects in 3DS to the .flc in AP. I've thought about rendering a gif image looking straight down on the text and then using it as a templet in AP draw the .flc but that seems a bit crude and open to distortion errors. Even I did it this way I'm not sure how I'd line it back up in 3DS. Got any tips you could pass along? Along the same vein, you say that the .flc is also used to control shininess (bottom of pg 92, left column) but I don't get that part at all. Where the opacity map is transparent the shininess comes from the object below and where it isn't the shininess comes from the general 3DS settings themselves doesn't it? Pardon me if my questions seem kinda (read: real) dumb. I'm a 3DS newbie. Thanks a mil in advance! – Ernie Jackson, Written 03-Jun-1995 @ 12:29:03 Using: Windows NavCIS PRO 1.62