Michael,

I have the free version 8 and from what you wrote I see that Moi solid don't convert to groups yet. I tried obj first and though it translate to (named) groups I notice the problem you describe above.

Today I decided to give Blender 3D 2.56a a fresh look, especially on rendering and I came across some very good tutorials here. (http://gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html) There is no tutorial on creating wood material and textures but at least this version of Blender is much less alien to me then prior version. I haven't find a way yet to import lwo file in this version, I guess I'll have to make it work before anything else. I also hope I won't have to go the way SteveMacc suggest in is post except may be to add things like knots and other defects, this is explain in one of the video I saw.

Regards,
Felix