Hi David,

> MoI-->export LWO-->Import LWO with Anthony's
> script in 2.49& save-->open *.blend file in 2.5
>
> isn't it?

Yeah, that would seem to be the only way to load the normals into 2.5 right now.

But unfortunately you'll still run into some problems if you then render, or try to edit UVs because both of those actions throw out any existing vertex normals and recalculate them by averaging polygon face normals.

So just loading them in is only part of the whole problem...

Blender just does not in general treat the vertex normals as an important channel of information that should be preserved when possible. I mean you do have to recalculate normals if you move some 3D vertex locations around, because you're then changing the shape of the model and it needs to be shaded differently to represent the new shape. But if you're just going to edit UV coordinates or do a rendering there is no reason to throw them out.

- Michael