Aldaron - actually, the sun is NOT a pin-point source. Try this experiment: Go outside on a bright, sunny day, when the sun is at an appreciable angle from the vertical (ie, not local noon). Stand somewhere where you can see your whole shadow. (If that happens to be the middle of a road with lots of fast traffic, I suggest moving the experiment elsewhere..) Now look at your shadow. Near the feet, the shadow will be crisp. As the shadow "moves" up the body it will get less distinct. The further away the surface that recieves the shadow, the less distinct... This is because your body is being hit by light rays from across the whole surface of the sun. Since ALL those rays are straight (not parallel - just straight), where they overlap after passing beyond the your body's edge, the amount of shadow is reduced. Plus, of course, the atmosphere spreads light around too. Which latter is something that many sci-fi artists forget: they are told that "in space (or on the moon) shadows are crisp, because there's no atmosphere". Not so. Although there's no light scattering from atmosphere, if the light source is close enough to be discerned as a disk, there will be shadow softening. The contrast will be much greater though. Errm... I'm rambling.. I'll shut up now... Cheers, Diolma