thanks for the advice guys....i tried turning on DA and leaving it at default setting 16.....no effect...the object still ended up looking jagged like the first pic above... i tried the aura with a simpler object....i used the sphere primitive and exploded it...turned on DA to 16, anti alias at best, and soft shadows...it looks like the jaggies are there again but its hard to see what they look like though cause of the aura....but you can clearly see black spots/creases though.... any more suggestions? thanks again for the help...much appreciated.