I think the curves-of-the-square-not-pointing-in-the-right-direction thing was the problem. One nice thing is that if you mess around with something on a computer long enough, you can usually get it it to work, or at least work better than it did... whereas in actual space-time, that generally causes it to break. Learning Maya 6 really does have its problems as an instructional book, which I'm kind of starting to see because of this issue. But I've learned that if you ask enough people for advice, a lot of them will know something. (passes around Good Advice-Giver Karma.)