Thanks much, I'm working with your suggestions. Any ideas about the 3d issue I mentioned above, that is, when the bubble is in front of or surrounding a glowing 3d-aura object, the light from the 3d glow does not shine through the bubble, but renders the glow invisible like it is not there. The object itself is visible through the bubble, but not its 3d glow. Jim

Quote - Hi Jim, Ahhhh, language is so imprecise - and sometimes I'm quite unclear too, especially when rushed at work. By default the reflection channel has a value stuck in there. So, select the value and the change it to Operators => Overlay from the pull down menu. Once Overlay is selected, you get two channels below it. Select channel 1 and then use the pull down menu again: Operators => Mixer. This will give you the structure you see in the image, i.e. two source channels and then a mixer element to combine them Now, that takes care of the first node under the original Overlay option. All that's left to do is convert the second channel to Color Gradient and build your bubble colors. Like all things, once you go through the the process you'll suddenly think, "Well that was easy. How could I have had any trouble at all?!" ;-) Mark