Thanks for the responses. Still haven’t figured it out. My versions of AE and Element are all up to date. My graphics card is the FirePro D700 which Element appears to support. Purged my AE cache.
The above photos were after applying a material to the object. Below is literally just after clicking “create sphere”. See how the tutorial version has a nice, soft shading while mine is just black underneath? Weird.
Tutorial:

Mine:

Here is my computer info…

Any other ideas are appreciated. Might be one of those things that remains unsolved!