Q: Does anybody know if it is possible to create an object that will refract other objects? Something like a magnifying glass! I'm desperatly trying and don't seem to be able to do it!!!!
HELP PLEASE!

A: Along with the REFRACT IPAS there is a workaround I always use when it comes to building magnifying glass.

Let's say you have the mesh of the mag.glass.
Create a new camera in the middle of the glass. You can adjust the FOV/lens to get the right view.
Link both the Camera and the Target to the Glass.
Create the animation you need - the camera will follow.
Hide the mag.glas object and render a flic with the new camera.
Unhide the mag.glas.
Put the ready flic as texture map into the glass material and use planar mapping coordinates to map onto the glass.
Render the animation from the desired scene camera.

The texture map on the glas will show a magnified view of the scene behind the glass.

Addition:

You can also get a Raytracer... :o)