CompuServe Messages

Joe…. In answer to your questions: 1) There is no 'Lightning' button in LW, but it is easy enough to do with a image sequence map. 2) LW has particles, but it has no predefined effects. It is fairly easy to creat rain/snow. Starfields are a snap. Fireworks/desintegration and spurting can all be done with a little work. 3) LightWave can do water with either bump mapped ripples or displacement mapped waves. Both small circular waves and huge ocean waves are easily done. 4) Planar/Spherical/cylindrical/cubic/front projection image mapping are all available in surface color, specularity, diffuse, luminosity, reflection, transparency values as well as displacement and clip mapping. 5) A LightWave scene file is just an ASCII text file. If you can somehow turn it into a 3DS file, feel free. I haven't heard of anyone doing it yet. Hope this helps… JG