Good insights Zarabanda. I actually do make my sets first and save them as pz3s before I ever put a character down - sometimes it gets me into trouble with scaling and stuff (I try and use Dr. Geeps scaling technique, but it seems not all the prop/figure makers do so there's always minor adjustments) but it at lest gives me a good base to work from - it also makes them reusable :). I've definitely run into the constriction thing, it is tricky, and I'll follow your advice about hiding walls when necessary (that still doesn't answer my question about the ceiling in relation to the lighting however). As far as rendering over a background, I'm afraid I'll lose correct shadows - and I've already got enough shadow problems. Also it seems it would make it more difficult for the figures to interact with things in the environment - I suppose its a matter of carefully selecting what gets put in the background and what stays in the actual poser environment. I might give that a try. ernyoka1 - I've followed that link before when you've posted it in other threads, that is good stuff. I think I'm going to keep my renders "cleaner" in the finished product except as special effects/special occasions demand different treatment. But I do like the text bubbles used, as I figured a more rectangular shape is much more space efficient - I'll make myself a set of rectangular text areas and some "spikey" ones for yelling (without the drop shadows) and try it out. I'll definitely reduce the size of my text - the text areas are truly taking up too much space. Oh yeah, Sam I did mess around with making my own "global" light set last night, and it seems like it will be a very useful thing once I get the hang of it. I think I ended up with about 14 minor lights and one Main light, with the minors set at an intensity of 13 (just to start with). It definitely gives a more well rounded lighting effect, but I think I may need to tone down the minor lights as it seems I've lost a lot of the shadow detail on the figure itself - the current setting makes things look a little too washed out or flat. Did anyone else have any comments or suggestions about the textures? Like I said, I haven't really seen better myself, so if I'm missing out on something great it would be good to know. If you all don't mind I'll post up my next page sometime later in the week for more critiquing to see if I've made any progress. Again, thanks very, very much for all the insights, they've been extremely useful (and kind). Unzipped