CompuServe Thread

We're trying to use VARY.SXP as an Opacity map on two seperate objects that overlap, permitting one to fade in over the other, and the other to fade out behind it shortly thereafter. A similar project we just did the same thing on worked fine, but on this project, it's like VARY.SXP is just plain not doing anything other than showing its dialog box when we click on the [S] in the Materials Editor (which proves it is present in the Map Paths). I've checked all the possible "stupid mistakes" such as making sure the colors are set right (Color 1 is 0,0,0 and Color 2 is 255,255,255 on the first object, and vice-versa on the second object), making sure the Opacity Map button is selected (shown with a red background in the Material Editor), making sure its slider is set to 100, making sure both the materials themselves and the rendered scene are set to Phong, making sure the Start and Stop frames are correct and well within the size of the total animation length, and that Start frame is less than Stop frame (by 30 — we want one-second fades), etc. etc. etc. Still no go. HELP!!!