How can I thank you for your kind words nomer? This small movie shows what a baked texture can do. Just exported from SU.
About lighting: is just the sun, checked. You know that there is a small problem in podium but model is about 2 meters high! Baked textures helped a lot.

Thanks pete. I think next week I'll paint the hole thing and sent you the uv map. BTW you may prefer normal map too. Thanks again.
For everybody who don't understand the use of baked textures, here's a quick animation in SU native (no external renderer). About 3 min (SU uses only one thread, sorry).

egypttest.mov

Now isn't it great? You are a magician pete. No, you are an artist.
I was waiting for this, a sand or a lime stone, my opinion is to use a more "layered stone" same color. Here's a reference photo since 1870 (great photo) before restoration.

Thanks pete. Something about 60 000 entities in SU. I think I can manage a 20 000 version. But here's another problem with baked models. Texture should be more than 2048x2048... Well the SU doc is about 17 mb zip. How can I post it to you, I love to see it rendered in vue with your magic atmosphere.

OK sorry redot I forgot it. Well the challenge here is baking. By this you can have real time animation in SU. Zbrush has indeed a real time renderer but no raytracing sorry. Nice preview, well not so nice because after hours of work when a real renderer comes, then I have to edit the whole thing again. Its an excellent app anyway.

A full model of Abu Simbel temple in SU. Is this possible? How many polys do we need? So I used zbrush > blender (baked UV maps) > 3ds export to SU > podium render.
Here's the first two statues of Ramses II. Have to do another two and some more smaller.

This last one "Chateau 1934" is a really amazing render. Great work pete!!!

A great landscape, waiting for a big bang.... could be a solution to this pollution. But great lighting as usual pete.

Great modeling!
I really like your style whatever you're using for rendering or PP (some reflections). Really clean presentation and an artistic one. Herze's style (creator of Tintin) is my favorite anyway.

Oh I like what you're trying to do here!
Maybe I need to see something more or something less, I'm not sure. What about some noise?

Water has a lot of specs. In the third image water and floor have almost the same specs, it confuses me. Too much bump in water? Too much reflectivity? Try this map too, have used it in many renders, for every kind of water. BTW I like your renders a lot.

I don't like ghost figures, I don't like sea water as it looks either. The rest are perfect, nice work.
More and more architects use these ghost style figures. What is this? Is this a joke? Or it has a deeper meaning, one I don't like to talk about it...

Beam me up oli. Please!

Come on pete. Do your magic here. Just for fun. An alien figure is coming soon.

Great work guys. I would like to see more of the landscape, a more "panavision" set up, houses look better this way (IMO). There is some kind of a "rhythm" that makes models look better, more detailed. Try and error... Just two great american painters coming to my mind, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth.

Here's an asteroid, quick modeling in zbrush> blender (baked displacement and normal in UV map) > SU > podium.
(Feel free to use asteroid.skp.)

asteroid.skp.zip

Please don't misunderstand me. I can understand Macker's point here. All these are for fun anyway...

Thanks for reply Macker, lot of people asked me the same.

1. I have some good friends in podium forum.
2. I've posted some work, rendered in blender, in blender forum.
3. I've also posted in zbrush forum.
4. Less is more, it is also a challenge.

In this work flow now comes SU. Bridge (TOS) from 3dW, rendered in podium, some PP in Gimp.

The winner in painting the unwrap UVs is (IMO) zbrush.

Just great nomer! Great calm compositions (the greek word is "synthesis"), great lighting.
Did you used an pp? I don't see much of it. (lol)
IMO UV mapping is superb if you get used to it. If you want to paint directly to surfaces, then its the only way. Especially in complicated structures.