I see now. Thank you for all the information, it gave me alot of room to play around with now that i know what's up

White background is just for convenience, so when i put it in a document/website it just melds right in.
Is it possible to create a background but hide it just for the render while still getting benefit from all the reflections? Or do you mean mask in photoshop?

Thank you for the fast answer i really appreciate it!

I tried placing a "box" around the object and it yielded some better results.
In the second image i placed large dark surfaces to the top and back outside of view.

Both methods are pretty crude and mess with the shadows. Maybe you know of some clever way to do this in sketchup?

Or should i just do the "box" and then remove the background in photoshop (white background is needed).

Hello everyone,

Sorry if im posting in the wrong place i could not find an SU Podium section.

Please help me with some rendering issues regarding chrome metal.
Attached please find the files showing the problem.

My issues are with the chimney. The lower part looks nice but above the roof it looks as plain grey resulting in an ugly juxtaposition against the lower part. When i change the viewpoint to above it looks fine.

I am using sketchup 8 and SU Podium V2. Material is the free chrome sample from the SU Podium browser in the metal section.I just painted it on the object no settings were changed.
Sketchup style engineering and shadow settings are light - 80 dark - 0.

Thank you for any tips in advance!