CompuServe Messages

>On Refraction Mapping front: I just rendered couple of Gems >(spent 1 hour on that exercise) and uploaded results: >you may want to check it out – REFRGEMS.JPG in IPAS Usage folder. They are truly beautiful, Aleksey, and one of the things I have always wanted to do with 3DS. Will you forgive me a few questions? 1) What is the exact way to go about creating such gems? Did you just create a regular solid (I have the full function HEDRA IPAS that does that), make it transparent and colored, and then apply your mapping IPAS? Or are there some steps I'm missing? Your message said it took you an hour to do the gems, and they are certainly worth the time, but I couldn't see what would take that long. Is positioning the object critical to the results? 2) How difficult is it to apply your mapping? 3) (This one really sounds stupid, but here it goes): What, exactly, *does* reflection mapping really do? I mean, I can see that I probably want it if nothing more than just to make gems like you did, but how does it differ from applying a refmap in the material editor? What other kinds of applications would I be likely to use it for? 4) How much and when available? Thanks for your patience.