Well here are two halfway decent renders, though it still needs alot of playing around with. Took so long to render this simple scene with all the lights. Part of my frustration was the fact that the render view made everything look jagged and crappy with banding and all that. I forgot that that's the way it is....once I brought into photoshop and saw how smooth it was, I felt much better. I still want to get a better grasp on how to use it to the fullest, though.