Thanks, Rafael. I didn't really change all that much -- talked to some video folks that I work with, and they though it looked great for youtube, so mostly I just stopped worrying. I did change the background color and exported to 1280 x 720 pngs, which helped some. It's the blue that looks the worst, and there was a lot of that in the sample I posted earlier (doesn't contrast w/the edges enough). It still looks a lot better on my computer or on drop box, but oh well. I do appreciate your help -- definitely got me to try different things, and to get unstuck. ps -- thumbnail seems to have updated.... hope someday I get to pick, as there are still much better choices.

Thanks Renderizer, I will check it out. Sadly I am not a math teacher, and if I could do math I could probably rule the world. I think I had been sent out on a errand somewhere when those chips were being installed prior to the storks delivery. I am seriously bad. More accurate to say a math moron, and without a calculator I would be reduced to laying out pebbles on the sidewalk to even know if I had received enough change from a store purchase. That being said... it has not made anything that I do with the graphics world easy. I will take a deep breath and delve into this and have a look at the plugins mentioned. I have no problems with the 2D exports, they look wonderful. I will also do some Youtube searching (thank Heaven for Youtube!!!) and see if there are any videos posted that might be helpful.

Thank you for your reply. It's nice to know that this problem has a name. I just realized that my problem is actually mathematical not with sketchup -- you are right, I am trying to have two planes occupy the same space! No wonder sketchup can't decide. I started making this model because I had trouble visualizing it myself, and then what comes up with sketchup is so close to looking like something that "should" be regular that I thought I knew what it was supposed to look like -- but five wedges arranged around a point cannot alternate between two colors. Those wedges are both colors.... So I think what I will do is change the coloring to two lighter colors and then explode the model and paint the faces where they intersect a darker color. In hindsight, the issue now seems obvious, sigh..... but I appreciate that you helped me get the answer, even if I didn't really ask the right question.... very interesting....