Hi Acadia,

Reflections and Refractions can be done in Poser, just like Bryce and Vue.  The catch is fedding reflective/refractive materials, with varied reflected/refracted light.  Bryce and Vue have built in Sky Domes,  so you're getting hits from every wich direction, by default.  Poser's outer space is null and void.  Without anything else in a Poser scene all you get is a reflect/refract of the actual light points(Bright white,) or the reflection/refraction of empty space(Dark points.)

Ajax has recently offered a great free Sky Dome for Poser.  At that thread you can see what kind of refections, and quality of background I've gotten with it.  It's only drawback is that, by default the Water plane renders as slow as molasses.  I; revamped the Sky Material Zone Texture, applied a Mirror material to the ground, and made each other Material Zone Transparent, for that image, and the background rendered very quickly.   Anyone interested in my Sky Dome Material file may e-mail me.

I think once you've added this sky dome to your scene you discover a whole new world within Poser; Reflections(mirror), and Refractions(Water, gems) become totally doable(just make sure youve keep Raytracing on(The manual recommends larger than 3!)

And I definately reccomend bagginsbill's material files!

P.S. - If you search for my name, in the Poser forum, and for either "Reflection" or "Sky Domes," you'll see some other threads I may have explained myself different with, but they mostly all boil down to Ajax's latest freebie!

Angel~