Gradient Textures

[David Bovill]

I've been taking a look at those gently beveled buttons / bars, and I'm
wandering the best way to do this. It seems people often use gradient fill
in images created in another program. My first take on this is that it is
not the optimal way to do things - is it not better to use a small image and
tile a button or a background of a group? For instance a 1 pixel wide image
(in the shape of a vertical line) which fades slightly at the top and bottom
- rather than an entire image in the form of a bar?

I have not played with gradient fills in Rev - but I know that there are
some imagedata experts out there that have experimented with creating such
fills with Revolution. Would it not be possible therefore to get Rev to
create these fill automatically? So that a bar could be created of any
height, width and base colour wanted?