well, a number of things, actually... and this is only my opinion, feel free to flame me afterwards. zo. the composition of the scene in terms of lighting takes attention from the sub and puts it on the fish up front. So the background might as well not exist. 2. the fish up front are way too large. there's no perception of depth, and much of that is due to the fact that the lights either have no shadows or are too strong. so strong, in fact, that their position lends the eye to believe that they're coming from behind the camera instead of from up high. 3. the textures, that mossy rock thing, is fine, and actually came out surprisingly good. the plants up front could do with a bit of bump mapping (something from the presets, whatever. 4. the plants up front seem to be standing in the water, considering that right below them there's a huge crevase. 5. the sub's light cone is a mat cone and not a light. the light cannot just end in a circle, it needs to hug the terrain. solutions... screw the atmosphere details. no atmosphere at all. set up the terrains and the plants, the fish and the sub, lose the camera depth blur for that last one. make the mats, assign them. make the plants and fish smaller, move the plants to come out of the rocks, and copy them around at different points of the terrain. lighting. this is what makes the scene what it is. the feeling of depth, which is given by the dark shadows, the 'murky' atmosphere. there's no singular thing in a render that actually tells someone 'there's water there'. it's a number of things. so set up like 3 or 5 round lights, squared setting, and some water mat on their actual projection (i don't know the technical terms, hope you follow). so 3-5 lights set out high over the ravene. make the middle one, the one above the sub the strongest, and make two cones of light coming from its reflectors, give it volume, make it visible. then it's all a matter of photoshop. the murk. hope this helps. drac