riversedge: This is the image with volumetric light turned off (pretty basic). The first image I started out with the 'Undulating furrows' function preset for the smoke/dust density production and modified it from there. Cheers: Thanks for the tips. I'll have to do some playing...err...work on that this weekend. Would rendering at a higher ppi work as well? Gabi: Most of the time I render at 1600x1200 and resize the image down. That seems to reduce alot of the graininess. The first image was rendered at this size and reduced in Photoshop to 640x480. Rich