I'm rendering scenes where I have glowing objects which I don't want to be used as light sources (the glow has been applied for the look and not for light). This hoses up renders if you're using indirect lighting. The difference between the results of GI .vs. raytracing are difficult to tell when you can't take advantage of the indirect lighting (in fact, GI appears worthless without indirect lighting). What kinds of experiences are others finding out there? The soft shadows in C are really starting to frustrate me big time!!!!! They just don't work worth a flying frog and they are so necessary when going for a more realistic look! If you can't use indirect lighting with GI, you sacrifice another avenue for a somewhat more realistic shadow (very limited though). Environmental lighting is still a good avenue but I'm having other problems with the shadows being too pixelated/striated. I'm SO HARD TO PLEASE on this shadow issue. RD had this problem figured out and could produce results. I really want to get my final images rendered lot better and stronger than my current results using GI. This is another example of how I think glow is not handled very well in C (my other complaint has always been how you couldn't selectively apply 3D aura for some glowing objects and not for others in the same scene.) So,,,,,, If you're up for it, comment on your experiences; 1.) Using GI without indirect lighting and 2.) Soft shadows Thanks, -Kix

-Kix