I like the pinball POV video tour! Can't wait to try that out. Do you make a sheet of glass to put on it, or just leave it off for the final model?

Looks like that same thing that happened to me:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/3d-pinball-models/page/2#post-3352421

Scroll down 2 posts to see what I did to make those circles go away.

Can't remember now, I'll let you know next time I get into 3ds, hopefully this weekend.

I unchecked Visible to Reflection/Refraction on the GI bulbs. These bulbs right now are a group made up of all of the parts - base, filament, glass part, etc. All unchecked and I think that is what made those circles go away, although that was a while ago. But I don't have them now.

Some of my playfield renders are already taking well over an hour on an i7 and that's with most of the lamps off and at low quality settings for final gather and the render, not even medium settings. I can't even imagine trying to do an animation.

So could you have a super nice pre rendered playfield to look at, then on top of that put on some lower-res real-time animations for the things that need to move a bit, like a spinner, drop target, etc?