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then I'm guessing the bug is that shadows and reflections don't look like they do in above image?
I daresay you-know-who will get to work on it ASAP, but in meantime, can ice-boy or athan post their: - shader setting for sphere

• render settings
• FFRender script settings (even if not using d3d's ffrender script)

are you lighting this with a light or with the IDL?

in my examples i used no lights. only the ENV sphere was the light source.