CompuServe Thread

Aaron, <<Could you give me a little more information about your scene, how its set up and the effect you are trying to get.>> I have created a stadium and I wanted to simulate light-stands aura. To do this I've created eight similar boxes very close to each other and placed them behind the character which was standing in the middle of the stadium (the light-poles were far behind). I then copied all the boxes to a single object to have another light stand which was standing in the other corner of the screen. I defined Aura to the eight boxes plus the other eight which were now attached. I applied the Aura by object using the default effect. In the render, strange things happened. The Aura sometimes showed and sometimes did not, or it showed up only in small parts of the image. <<The units that you set for focal range should match your unit setup in 3D Studio. How are your units setup, and what discrepencies are you noticing.>> I have created a flat box on which I scattered a few small boxes, I aimed the camera terget at the middle box and measured the distance from the target to every direction using the tape from the top view. The tape showed 40 units approx. which covered the middle box entirely. In the settings I set the focus to automatic, and the focal range to 40. I expected to see only the middle box in focus and the rest of the scene blurred. The scene came out blurred in parts which I didn't expect. Far away from the middle box in the right, the scene was in focus. The middle box in some faces and corners was a little blurred. In short : a complete mess. I would be thankful if you could solve my problem. With Thanks Sus. P.S. Are there any tutorials (maybe with meshes) part from those in the manual?