Thanks folks,

Rhetoric Camel: Thanks, I'm still not convinced that I know what I'm doing though!!

mmoore: long time man, I hope all is good with you.

Neo: I'll sort that out for the next render. Half of the detail won't even matter in the final animation but at least I know it's there and can be used if necesarry.

In the mean time....

I've changed the renderer from Maya to mentalray (40 seconds faster per frame) and have been playing with an occlusion render pass to make the room look more grimy. The book shelf is now full and I've spent ages tidying up the file scene (readying for animation) so it's pretty much done, next I need to design and make the character.

Cheers for your thoughts,

Mat.