Stevie G - I like the look of your game (if it is a game) but I'd definitely scrap those soft shadows. They ruin the whole feel of the place. Why not try a tesselated mesh for each non-static object then line pick the ground underneath for deformation - and just use alpha - that way you can keep the hard crisp edges throughout the game world. It would look just perfect - trust me. You can make different vague shadow meshes to suit each vehicle.