Ah, well, I decided to try to go with my original "pun"... So here I have a still (that's the pun btw, just for those who don't have English as their native tongue), with bottles, glasses and stuff. (And before I forget - Thx to 3DCafe for their bricks texture. I hope to do my own before the challenge finishes.) My main (current) problems: 1. How do I reduce the severity of those ugly black shadow on the heater (the equally ugly thing under the still)? I added an extra light (2 lights; 1 the usual sun + 1 I added to try to soften the shadow. didn't work:-P ) 2. How should I re-arrange things so that the eye travells naturally to the centre of focus? (Btw - I intend to try to add a "droplet" to the end of the spout, just about to drop into the bottle. Oh - and add legs (where necessary) to the table.) 3. errm -- Anything else that will help me win this month's challenge:-) ('cos I got a GREAT idea for next month's!!) All Bryce 3D (it moves) + a bit of my own stuff created in AC3D and OpenFX. Apart from the above mentioned Bricks texture. Love to all, and thanks if you reply, Cheers, Diolma

Umm. And now I look at it, how do I create a better "wood" texture for the table?

Try arranging the bottles so they are in slanted lines with the wider ends of the lines towards the edges of the pic. Soft shadows on lights? More lights close together*

Attached Link: http://www.tonylynchdesigns.com/bryce_wood_mats(1).htm

Tony Lynch has about 200 free Bryce wood materials at the URL above. As for the shadow I'd put a low intensity, no falloff fill light behind the camera, with shadows turned off. HTH; Dan