Thanks'o Rage! will try that out and post the results. Also, I think I will lower the fire's glow intensity, make it more red, and make the smoke more transparent- for anyone (probably most of you) who has seen The Matrix: Reloaded I am going for the same look as the smoke when the two trucks collide head-on in bullet time (that was increadible cg, by the way) of course it won't look quite so good if I expect render times to be managable, but I will try to acheive someting similar.