Dave, that mat is something new in my freesection, but the real credit of the texture is the actual reference photo that I snagged from [www.grsites.com](http://www.grsites.com)...

1st thing I noticed was the shadow... I said "wonder how he got that there"... I thought you used a spot from high above casting the shadow :P Alot of shadow and alot of reflection in there too, any lightsources Thelby, or is it entirely IBL?!?

I have some renders pretty much tying my system down now, cant do much, but I think as a "rule of thumb" for me, Ill be combining IBL and the "random" light dome method... On my last image, NOT part of the experiment, I combined the method, but usually Ill have my light shadows turned OFF. This time, I set them ON w/ an intensity of 0%, yes ZERO (set to black, w/ the shadow set to 20/15) and I was very pleased w/ the end result. There was a HUGE difference (not only in how the image looked, but render time as well) from turning the light shadows from off to on w/ 0% intensity, visible in the preview window, but I did not do a full render to "actually" compare results........... Ill do a full render w/ lights off asap, and some more "tests" to show you guys.

Again, I greatly appreciate the participation :)

There are 3 kinds of people in the world. Those that can count, and those that can't..