It came to my attention a site, where you can request a model, usually a piece of furniture from a certain designer or manufacturer and in a couple of days, you get a reply.
Usually you get a 3D render, a skp file, an atl (atlantis) file AND a 3Dmax file, back!!! Needles to say, the results are usually stunning.
Have been using it for my projects, for quite some time now.
And of course they charge for the efforts, (something like 10 euros for a B&B italia sofa) but only if you download the object requested, or any other available on the site for that matter.
There are also some objects for free, downloadable directly from the site.
Have a look here
http://designconnected.com/

Yes, please!!!
Been looking for something similar for quite some time now, but to no avail...

@alan fraser said:

Here's a very quick example...and how it renders. If I'd spent longer arranging the clones more randomly...so many of them weren't at the same height and angle, it would have looked much better.

OMG Alan, I thought it was a photo of your backyard!!!
Wish I could do something similar with my limited imagination and skills...
Any chance you could make a tutorial on the subject?

I think it is called "Grass"
Use the advance search tool of this forum and you'll find it right away

The other day I found a comparison done by some university students between Vray for Sketchup and Artlantis. I can tell you there was no noticeable difference between them. I wasted 6 months of my life in vray, so I would recommend Artlantis anytime.
Call me shallow, but I prefer a good graphic interface, an on the spot light control and live preview with materials, from a spotless render that can take hours of fiddling with small number and senseless parameter handling, to create...
I'm an architect and I want immediate good results for my presentations and the package Sketchup+Artlantis delivers those results just fine.
If only artlantis had a better bump control and displacement...

P.S. Great job there! where did you get those 3d people they look great (although the girl IS on the edge of her sit...)

Great!
Very nice indeed.
Can you please attacg the .style file too?
Thanks

Wow, very nice concept!
Now if someone could do this as a sketchup style...

Thanks, very nice.
That's what I call old skool...

Hi, very nice indeed!!!

You could try linking the file to rapidshare.com, upload.com etc and then posting the link
I'm sure there are other solutions too, but this works for me everytime.