Just experimented a bit last night with gaps in the pi, really because Candide asked me about gaps. I'm a bit mentally scattered to learn things properly, unfortunately, but I'll just soldier on in my everlasting dunce state.

I think if I find a program that resonates with me and is a good all-rounder I'd be better off sticking with it as whipping back and forth madly from program to program isn't very productive. It was like that for sculpties, as I'd use all kinds of programs, sometimes just to translate from .obj to sculptmap. Meshes are capable of being far more direct as they aren't clever tricks or weirdness known only to SL; .dae is not quite as ubiquitous as .obj but not far off.