if you are wondering why I posted an almost identical picture to one I jsut posted, the reason was this: I wanted to try a little experiment. I removed the sphere of 120 or so lights, and replaced it with one light, encompassing the hollowed out sphere, about 20 units larger. aside from being a bit darker(easily changed via the edit option) there are shadows and you can see a spot of light on some of the metaballs. of course, being only one light, it only took 3 minutes and 13 seconds, so if you don't need a perfect shot, and need it immediatly, this might be a way to go.