Render settings advanced control

[PhilippeV8]

Since using animation plugin, I am looking into advanced render control settings (where I used to use "max time" all the time before) in order to end up with same quality frames for the animation and have no flickering images.
Now, no matter how I set up these settings, I end up with a render that looks like if I turn off "global illumination" in the keyshot settings.  All shadows are black as the night.
Am I missing something ?

[PhilippeV8]

check image names for settings:

(mind you that the render with max samples set to 300 is a scene that comes sooner in the animation where a plane is blocking the sun for simulating cloudy conditions)