Sorry if I am to repeat anything someone has said, I didn't get thru the whole thread. I made the Akiko texture in the original render. It does take an aweful lot of work to get something to look real. I gave up on Poser's rendering engine a few years ago when I saw what Cinema 4D could do. Now I can light scenes with a picture I've taken of a garden ball and light a scene with that picture mapped on a sphere. Lighting is so important to a scene but without any postwork (IMHO) it just is impossible to make something look totally real...at least with Poser. Anyway take a look at this picture (more can be found @ www.expressionimage.com. This picture, ignore copyright here, this couldn't become a sold piece without the permission of the photographer since I am using this photo but it was basically for the challenge to see if I could do it. So basically the point I'm making is if you look close enough after all this work you can still see or recognize the 3d even after all the work put in. We're close but may have to become God before we're there. Lights, Shadows, and the interaction between the environment, they are in all help but you know this because you see it everyday, it's just taking notice and putting into practice, what the natural world teaches you and simulating that quality in the computer.