Well it does take a bit of time and patience to use, but with a bit of
effort and perserverance it is possible to create some pretty spectacular
models with sPatch.
I've put a few links in the povray.text.tutorials news group if you want to
check them out. They're under the heading "Best sPatch tutorials".
Other hints of what is possible with sPatch can be found in the IRTC
competitions page. sPatch was used in a few of the entries to model at least
some of the objects in the scene files.

My best advice would be to read the help file in sPatch again, even if you
can't understand everything right away, try your best. Then try some of the
simpler tutorials listed at Mike Clifton's sPatch page. Dominique Jacquel's
tutorial is the best place to start, along with the couple of examples at
Mike Solly's sPatch page at http://members.aol.com/msolly1010/index.htm
Splines are explained fairly well at Jeff Cantin's site :
www.alienlogo.com/tincan/Spline-tut.htm . The examples are more geared to
Hash's 3D modeler, but you can follow along by substituting sPatch's
commands for the Hash ones.
Once you've done this, go back and reread sPatch's help file. It will
probably be a lot clearer now. I know it was for me.

Depending on how serious you are about 3D, you might want to try some of
these other packages :
Hash Animatiom Master www.hash.com
Blender www.blender.nl
Rhino3d www.rhino3d.com

These packages add more features for a price. Hash AM lists for $US 199, and
Rhino3d lists for $US 795. but check their sites for current pricing.
Rhino3d is a very powerful modeler. Hash AM and Blender add animation
features to the mix.
Blender is a very impressive program that you might want to give a try. You
can DL it for free and the cost depends on your platform. If you're a
Windows user, it'll set you back $US 100 to be able to save your work,
another $US 100 to get the full-featured package, and about $US 50 for a
manual. If your running UNIX you save yourself $100.

Of course I should mention POVRAY since it's free, and they're paying to
maintain this news group that I'm using to send this message. :)   :)   :)
Oh yeh, there's also Moray, and a host of other modelers if you check
around.
>
>
>Thanks,  I think I've finally figured it out.  Spline based modelling is
>freaking hard. (at least I think so).

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