Well here is my entry for Wierd objects & strange devices. As soon as I read the subject I knew what I was going to do. On a local bbs we have a Multi users dungeon game -- circle mud. In this there is a room which gives the following description. Welcome to the machine This is a big dark room filled with one huge thrumming machine that powers the whole plant. Gears, pistons and everything imaginable shoot out at crazy angles and insane velocities, making this room very dangerous. The thrumming in the room makes your head want to pop from the pressure of it all! A Giant Machine twists and whirls, hitting you by accident. Then if you look at the machine you get this description. It looks like a giant twisted creation of a blind engineer on acid. It's extruding parts look so hazardous that just thinking about entering the same room might ge tyou extremely hurt! The Machine is using: The magic gear..It has a soft glowing aura! It was the strangest device that I could think of ;) lets see. credits.. The fire is from a royalty free picture I have on a cd (of a sunset) and the picture I used for bump mapping the floor is also from the cd. (it looks like a t.v. that you turn on to a channel that has no program..."snow") I made the back wall map mainly in Photostyler w/ kai's power tools. I also made the pattern to use on the gear the same way. I had a terrible time with this months project. On Guam we have been suffering from rolling power outtages for the last 2 months and every 2 hours until 11 pm we were alternating on and off. This made rendering a real pain. I would get one or one and a half hours into it and then get zapped...(thank God for my ups..) I was also doing an illegial rendering map (though i didn't dope it out till last night) that would also crash the render about 3/4 the way through... I think the best thing about this monthly contest is that it keeps me pushing more and more on what I can and can't do. I am learning more every time I make an entry. Who knows someday if I keep this up I will get good... Thought I would include some stats on my image so here they are... 46152 points 189251 edges 50498 polygons 157 objects 5 lights (thank you to everyone who helped me with ideas for the light bulbs...) Thanks for reading all this stuff... I can't wait to see what else other people enter... David Spake preacher@kuentos.guam.net have fun and keep rendering/tracing