AS - Thanks for your detailed explanation. As far as lighting the scene with color info - basically any image that is the aspect ratio of the HDRIs you are talking about and is seamless can light a Bryce scene - but only a true HDRI image has enough brightness to act as a real light (all by itself). And yes the ones designed for HDRI are better quality than a stock reflection map - that is definitely a benefit. I was not referring to tinfoil reflection maps, etc - I mean real world or room view spherical maps just like you are talking about. The whole reason the distort/polar coordinates filter exists in photoshop is to fix pinching problems on would be spherical maps. Somewhere in my EI files I have a tutorial on this and I will see if I can find it. Yes not having distortion is key and I think the ones from doschdesign and marlin are already seamless spherical maps - ready to go with no futzing. I look forward to your tutorial on this - and if there ever is a Bryce6 an HDRI plug-in would definitely be sweet. From the images I have seen posted pure faked HDRI looks great for soft shadows and has a GI look to it but they are way too dark in Bryce and the user should still add a fill light that doesn't cast shadows just to make them a little brighter. Keep up the good work - this is very interesting. Scott : )