WOW! :wow:

More responses than I was expecting and tons of great ideas too! Kewlage! Okay, here's something else that has sparked in my mind. You guys have mentioned GI Joe... I USE that sucker all the time... BUT, for indoor use, it sucks, at least for me, anyway.

I once created a room, a square one with just four walls - no windows, no door, no way for light to get in at all - and I took my GI Joe and scaled down the sphere to where the lights came in sort of throught the walls, and it sort of worked. Not quite sure what my settings were, to be honest. So far, I've not used GI Joe in this project (though I did early on - it put my render times to crapola!) and I probably won't as my processor speed is only 533 MHz - still working on scraping up the money for a better computer.

I haven't made any changes yet since last night when I used the ambient light - what setting should I use with the directional light and do I need to make it ore of a blue color as well?

Onto the shadow comment... I've used a few of the tricks I've seen on this site as well as the Maya 4.5 Savvy book on using Depth Map Shadows and the settings of depth mapped samples. A world of difference it has made.

I've been battling myself and losing painfully on whether or not to make the mood of this film dark and spooky or fun and warm. I'd hate to send this short off the festivals in the hopes of getting a happy response when all it really brought with it was an "Empire Strikes Back" emotional snag. :saywhat: It tends to be leaning more towards that warm and fuzzy feeling (which seems to be what I really want b/c I think my next project is going to ebd up being quite dark and morbid and even violent (!)) Anywho, I still appreciate all of your helpful comments and critiques. I'll try the directional light and get back with you all soon. Thanks again... Oh, BTW, here's one of my renders with the ambient light from outside the windows...


Russell