See what happens when I don't read before I reply?

Quote - personally i'd remove the trees entirely, tall bare trunks like that are kind of wrong for the plains. unless of course they're phone poles....just my opinion; you're the artist

I think I'll keep them, Jancory:  if you look at the background, you'll see trees in the distance, as well.  I live in a rural area that is mostly desert, but in a few places, water is near the surface, and we get trees there.  It IS odd-looking, I'll admit, but if you'd like, I can show you a few pictures.  Dry desert vegetation and even bare ground, and then a small stand of trees.  Weird.

And Bagginsbill has the right of it yet again.  As a newbie, I rely ENTIRELY too much on default settings.  Well, by now, I'm no longer a newbie, so I'll have to side-grade myself to dilettante.  [wry smile]  The ray-traced shadows looked much nicer.

And BB got there again.  [grin]  Yeah, their default lighting system has a skillion lights in it.  (I find that seems to be especially true of the older stuff, or am I imagining it?)  I'll change the blur radius and see how that looks, as well.