that should be reduced in the shadow pass shonner :)..if not...shrug... there will also be a "lighting" pass where lights on the ship will be rendered and composited in. That'll either help (or hurt) the current lighting setup. I hope the shadows dont remove too much detail from the ship which is why there are lights around the ship to show the detail. In C's original render (at the top) you cant see any of the very extreme detail of the spaceship. As this finishes, that should be visible and also the extra things be there as well. :) I'll reduce the saturation in the final image after everything is done to reduce the "cartoonish" look of the sky. Interestingly enough, this is a default "realistic sky" that comes with C5 pro. Not too realistic, but interesing... this is all part of an experiment. Ive read about about the multiple passes for renders that are then composited because this gives greater control of the final image at the end. A default render, a beauty pass (all the textures), a shadow(a gray model with bright lights) , a highlight (a gray model with bright lights), and a lighting pass. All composited together in a video editor where you can vary the opacity easily of each pass and also mask out other things. It interesting to see the control that this method offers and I can see why some studios do it this way. :) more coming soon BT