.SHP files by hand?

[nihilesthetics2]

Yes, you're right. What I meant to say was that if you create a closed shape, then the normals point outwards from every triangle. But if you create an open shape, like a plane, then if you look at it from the back you wont see it. But at least all the normals will point the same way, so it will always look right. The trick then is to always use closed primitives, even if they are very thin so they look like open shapes. Most packages have modifiers that will do this if you apply them to the model.

I too have gone through the trial of manually manipulating files, and had more than my fair share of errors

N2