Useful stuff! The main darkness difference is I forgot to render with a gamma correct of 1.3 as I had previously. Otherwise, there was no attempt to darken. (My previous machine died but fortunately I'd saved all but my last tweaks to the above; missed the gamma correct though).

I tried a Bryce cloudy night sky last night but had a problem with how it was sized in the backdrop (not sure what that was and didn't feel like spending much time on it.)

I agree the roof tiles are too big and the stars are still off. But... I'm itching to get on to my next project so I think I'll leave it as is for now. It was my first exercise focusing on lighting and composition and useful for me for that.

I received Amapi7 this week and am working on a chalice as a prop for another scene. Amapi 7.03 is a bit unstable but I'm finding it very easy to use; much better than my experience with Amapi 5. Once I have some Carrara renders I'll post a WIP of it for kicks. It will use Mark D's iridescence shader and hopefully show it off well. Still doing the modeling now...

Thanks again for the comments.

Marc