My suggestion (on getting rid of the lines) would be to smooth them over in postwork... it's a messup that Bryce has, particularly with volumetric textures... LOL not sure if there are mesas in Australia (probably not). Personally, though, I avoid using the traditional Ambience features of Bryce. If you do use them, I would suggest setting the lower Ambience channel (the one labeled "Value"). This of course gives you detail in the shadows, as opposed to a solid color, which looks unrealistic IMHO. Of course the ideal situation is to do a Premium render and turn on True Ambience, along with soft shadows and any other options you care to have, but this only works properly if you have several days to spend rendering, especially with the volumetric fire! =P On the shadows: Yep, that's what I meant... you're right it looks much much better with shadows enabled. Uh... no comment. =P Good luck IMHO this looks roughly 300% better than it did at first! Oh, yeah, and sorry about the length of this, I talk too much =P