Regarding the gather, I find that the effect is usually too strong. If you're plugging it into Alternate_Diffuse, choose a gray instead of white for the value multiplier. This will make the amount of gather much more subtle.

I tried to make an animating GIF of these three renders so you could see the differences more easily. It looked like crap.

Anyway, I wanted to show what a toned down amount of Gather should look like. I have Gather and AO on the ground and the ball, so the ball lights the ground and the ground lights the ball.

I did it in Poser 6 because Poser 7 (the thrid render) doesn't work right. They broke it. Face_off says use material based AO because it works better - well this IS material based AO. It doesn't work better. It sux.

I used 25 samples - that should be high enough to avoid banding and splotches.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)