This is my first post, which goes to show how good the Apache tutorial really is. But I have come across a problem that I cannot resolve, and it's to do with Mental Ray. I am on pt4 of the animation series and am trying to render the chopper, but no matter what settings I use (on my 3rd day of trying variations) I can't get rid of some black artifacts that have appeared as indicated in the included image. It seems to have something to do with the tyres and there are some black dots on the end of some of missile tips? I have gone back to a previously saved file and redone the procedure in part 4 several times and the problem always comes back? There aren't any nurbs in my model and it is pure poly and my shaders aren't anything too funky. To be honest I have searched elsewhere for some tips for M.R and have discovered that it can produce these kinds of results for various reasons, most of which are mysterious, so I am a bit sick of trying to get this right by using it anymore. Can I light my scene conventionally and render the chopper with Maya? This is only the 3rd model I have made and I have only been using Maya (or any 3D software) for 4 months, so I have a lot to learn about lighting too. Any suggestions Mister Brown? and thank you for a fantastic tute, that has been a Baptism by fire for me.
Smokey B

THIS IS A BIG PS: I also sometimes get an error which reads "[Mayatomr.Shader] : singleShadingSwitch1: array attribute is empty" if that may be anything to do with it?