Thank you for advancing the discussion of this important topic. I am going to go back in on my trial version of Carrara and attempt to take it further. Yes, the images here are closer together; the Carrara image is getting closer to the resolution on the strands, but still not quite there, so they would need to be pushed. And yes, raytrace on such strand hair resolved this tightly is going to blow out render times. I would say you need the 'other kind of light/shadow', what Poser calls "depth Map Shadows" and Carrara i believe calls 'shadow buffer'. But with all due respect, I don't think the statement that one "could definitely beat P6 render times by a great deal" is a sure thing at all. I've already put an afternoon into this, and while I got the ratio down to something better than your 14:42 above, Poser was still well in the lead. I'll post back here in the next 24 hrs with more tests of my own, especially now that you have directed me to the way of getting the needed resolution over to Carrara. Thanks greatly for that. Meanwhile, I went searching for renders at the Eovia website of anything remotely close to my style of close-in work, and did not find anything. That's not the fault of the gallery posters; it is due to my choice of unusual focus. More later. ::::: Opera :::::