Lynne:

You have jumped into the deep end - try some simple stuff and get to know Carrara, it's well worth it.

I just have to comment on your statement about ray tracing.  Put an object in a simple scene and shine two lights on it, angled from either side of your camera.  Render this with ray traced shadows and with shadow buffer.  You will immediately see the loss of dimension.  By using a detailed outside scene like Howies, you have happened upon a use for shadow buffer - where definition of a focal object is not important.  If you try that with a character, you will be very quickly disappointed.  Either that or you'll keep trying to make it look better, but the image will seem flat.

Ray tracing is your friend, and a strength of the Carrara render engine.

Klebnor

Lotus 123 ~ S-Render ~ OS/2 WARP ~ IBM 8088 / 4.77 Mhz ~ Hercules Ultima graphics, Hitachi 10 MB HDD, 64K RAM, 12 in diagonal CRT Monitor (16 colors / 60 Hz refresh rate), 240 Watt PS, Dual 1.44 MB Floppies, 2 button mouse input device.  Beige horizontal case.  I don't display my unit.