For some reason whenever I try and apply a texture to the shell in this file, the basics of the phong appear but no textures will at all.
Is there something selected that I don't know about? Any...

I turned on ray-traced shadows for all of my lights, but i can't find render globals anywhere?

just as title says. any ideas?

I have no idea why, but suddenly when I pan, zoom, or anything, in maya 2012 the objects all flash to wireframe view until i stop scrolling. Is there a way to turn this off?

So i'm totally new to maya, and I've been doing well so far in figuring out the program, but I'm starting to have major trouble.
none of the objects in my scene will cast a shadow on the ground!...