Remus,
LOL.. took me a while to see it/him!

holy crap... pilou... U really need to clean up that desktop!

hello brodiee..
If u check out the environemt rollout.. u will find an option that controls the camera parameters such as exposure and all.. try fiddling with it.. the default values are always dull for me.. try messing with those...

edit :
i find these sites/blogs to be very helpful in learning mental ray :

http://3dsmaxrendering.blogspot.com/
http://mentalraytips.blogspot.com/

a great material sharing site :
http://www.mrmaterials.com/

it sure does support Z-Depth...
http://www.vray.com/vray_for_3ds_max/manual/vray_for_3ds_max_gbuffer_support.shtml#Supported_G-Buffer_channels

namastey abhishek!
care to share more about the render engine u used???

looking good pete! my only comment would be that the big screen tv image looks like its pasted on the wall.. no reflections.. can be fixed easily.. also.. a huge tv like that would emit a lil bit of light also..
care to share the render preset u used, render size and render time ?

to be honest.. the grain actually looks kinda cool in this...
nice job!

thanks for the heads up tim!

WOW!

and tina... u have now 1111 posts... talk about odds.. LOL
P.s .. if u reply .. its gonna go away!

3DAllusions is a good place too.

this is indeed a fascinating building.. the first time i came across this was when Russell from 3DAllusinos started a WIP thread. He started off with using VueXstream with Max and ended up with using Max alone with Mental Ray proxies. I think he was tryin to recreate the actual foliage as existing in real life.

hi!
Actually yea.. its much better.. but u could try darkening the shadow to match those formed by the eaves.
anyways.. are u using the built-in filters from Photoshop or anything 3rd party?
regards,
JJ

me like! nice presentation!
small crit :- shouldnt the tree in front be casting shadows? looks like its stuck on the face of the wall..

i agree with pixero.
mental ray has a very tight integration with 3dsmax and other autodesk products like maya and revit.
revit started integrating MentalRay only with its last release or so. till then Accurender Nxt was the default render in Revit. so older users prefer Nxt over MR. but considering the fact that MR is being shipped along with these products as its native render i think more and more ppl are gonna use it and depend less on other plugin render like Vray or FinalRender. this is all assuming that MR doesnot go the Vray route and become detached from 3dsmax. Mental Images is a different company after all.. so who knows...

maybe our friend Free Agent can help...
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=18928&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=gabion

i was wondering why u would post a .kmz file..
well i have never encountered a problem like this. maybe other experienced users can help.
in the meantime u can export a view of ur cabin model as a jpg image and put it up if u wish.

u save the file as a .skp file itself.
as for attaching the file here... in the reply screen u have an option to upload attachments. its just below the space where u type in the message. u wont miss it. i am sure.

rather than a export plugin, my guess would be that max would support native import of SU files.
look at this thread from cgarchitects:
http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/35628-3d-max-2010-import-sketchup-file.html
the 7th and 8th posts of the thread says of some alternatives from Okino.