Trying to get look of scanning electron microscope. Tried a narrow cylinder with Anything Glows attached to it, but strangely, no matter how I set the fall-off it was extremely sensitive to position; objects in the exact center of the field were illuminated evenly and all others were shadowed on three sides. That's the above. Incidently, note how one of the dust specs is shadowed by the other? That was with shadows turned off on the light, the object, _and_ the render options. Sigh. Had more luck with setting up Sky Light with a bi-gradient background, with everything but Start Ground set to black. Best results were a combination of the two, with a hint of grey in the End Sky of the background to light upper surfaces, and lighting set to high quality in most parameters. I'm building third iteration of models to go with that (surface details are _essential_ for the right look here, and all edges have to be planned to catch just the right amount of light)

Ok, I don't see the shadowed speck. Have you tried turning on the skylight? I think shaderops can also do some of this stuff. -Kix