Nice a fellow Dreamer. Layers are not as advanced as you are describing, you get depth, channels, etc. Though from chat sessions with Eovia they seem to be planning on adding more flexibility with layers and the ability to seperate out DOF, rendering filters, etc. Shadow buffer maps can be used but they are default maps generated by Carrara, it would be nice to be able to control them, thats a good idea. Yeah Carrara is a good program. It gets critisized often before people give it a chance, and really look into it. Thats why I've stuck with it, and with every new release it is another step closer to the big boys at half the price. You should download the demo and give it a try! Brian