Breaking object links for animation

Good afternoon,

I have a rather simple question that has been dogging me since last night. I have a scene that I would like to animate. To see the scene, go to http://www.digitalharbors.com/_images/blender/docks.jpg.

Essentially, there are three lights in a row. I want to animate the middle one so that it looks like it is shorting out or blinking. I have not problem animating the lamp energy. The shade around the lamp has its emit cranked up, so I need to animate that as well. That I also can do.

Unfortunately, when I created the lamp shades, they somehow got linked. I first created the one on the right. I then left edit mode and duplicated it to make the middle one. I then duplicated the middle one to make the left.

Now, when I animate the emit for the lamp shade, all three shades blink. How can I separate whatever is binding these objects? They were never parented or tracked. They are just duplicates of each other. Thanks for your help.

Select the middle lampshade, go to the edit buttons, and look at the field that says ME: and the mesh name. This should be blue and have a number three next to it. Click the number and then click “Single User.” This will make the mesh (currently one mesh is linked internally to three different objects) unique to that object.

Unfortunately, that did not work. When I select the mesh and then go to the edit buttons (F9), the mesh is name ME:Mesh.015. However, there is no number next to it and it is not blue. Furthermore, I cannot find the User button. I have seen before, but I cannot find it now.

Does anyone else have an idea. This is really driving me nuts. Thanks.

cough…bump…cough

Could you post the blend or e-mail it to me?
mailto:[email protected]