OK. I nailed my problem down. And it came from a tip stewer posted in the linked thread (HUGE thanks for that link, jeff). Stewer said 'For the reflective surfaces, reduce the diffuse_value to something around 0.1' Well, I tried that and the walls were black. Then I tried a value of 0.500 and got the result in this pic. I need to tweak it, but I'm on the right track. Thanks to all who contributed. mac PS Yes, the shadowcams might easily account for that softness.