I'm not too sure about what you mean by angling the camera to cut through the sphere. I probably don't know how to do it anyway either. On the shadows, how exactly would you darken them?? Also, the ground texture is a sand texture...it's actually supposed to be beach sand but the sky I chose darkened it a little. By the way, I would have liked to experiment with a New Year's theme...but I couldn't think of anything!