Hi Michael, yes, those are just seperate objects I'll recreate the two outer pieces to be one part and then boolean add that to the sphere, that'll help me stop seeing the cracks on the edges in my renders (earlier I was just sinking them into the sphere's surface a little bit...)

The normals aren't a biggie though (keeping in mind your suggestion about open surfaces) - it was the cracks that had me head scratching but that appears to be a Lightwave issue. (Lawd I don't want to buy Cinema 4D after all I've invested in LW (books, plugins etc.) nor do I want to buy Modo!)

Just trying to find a workflow for myself here...

-Will

Yeah, cracks between edges are the other part that is solved when you have a fully joined piece. MoI will do extra work along shared edges to ensure shared vertices between the meshing of each surface.

Since Modo is going to support vertex normals in the next version, I would assume that LW will do it pretty soon too... At least I hope so. That would make it easier for you to stick with LW.

- Michael

Yes, again it looks like it has to do with Lightwave's Perspective camera vs the Classic one which renders fine (of course that was also at work with my DELL and its lowly Intel (non-3D accelerating azz adapter...)

I would imagine that I'd get the same here at home though - I'll find out in a few...

As far as LW, yes, I have so much invested in Lightwave (coming in at v6.5); time, plugins, books etc., I'd hate to move on to something else over this but I'm not sure I'm as optimistic about Newtek improving this just because Modo is going to get improved, unless they're locked in some kind of never ending battle (reminds me of that Star Trek episode with Frank Gorshen; the half-black/half-white dudes... hmmm, seems like a fitting analogy :-p )

Yes, I would imagine Newtek has to stay competitive with Modo since basically (IMO) they're the same app - Modo is rapidly catching up as it is - I guess time will tell...

-Will