I did a bit of studying at the weekend and actually taught myself something about rendering!, I revised materials, lighting and environment and got these.
The previous set required a fair bit of levels work post process as I got my initial renders so wrong, these required very little.
They're still a little dark but I quite like the 'moodiness' of them.
As Baz says get or at least try to get the money back but first....
Do you or he own the domain?
If he setup and therefor potentially owns your domain you hay have trouble getting it off him, You could always create a new one with a similar name if he proves to be difficult. You could also contact the host providers to explain the situation and see what help they can provide.
Can you change the passwords to the hosts account?
If you have the passwords then you need to change them at the same time you inform him of your decision, if you don't and he decides to play rough you'll have to try contacting the host providers.
I've created a number of sites for friends, I'm not pitching for your work in any way as I don't take on commercial projects due to most of my time being taken up with 3D stuff but I do know a little about the subject.
http://www.employabilitysouth-belfast.org/
http://www.nqca.eu/
http://www.dma-ni.com/
DO NOT feel bad for him, he's in business (or should be) to provide a service, if he's failing to deliver on that then you need to find someone who can. Remember your site will require ongoing attention to keep it relevant and up the Google rankings (Search Engine Optimisation SEO), if he's failing at this stage then I'd also be worrying about the future.
If there's anything you want to ask, feel free.
Thankyou baz!!!
That's exactly what I've been missing.
Rerendered them last night, with better settings and spent a little more time post processing them, much better I think.
I forgot to say that they are done with Twilight.
Here's another Layout presentation, A1 portrait this time.
So, I'm still very impressed with Layout with regard to displaying SketchUp models but.....
When it comes to content from outside of SU its woefully lacking, to get AutoCAD in it has to be a jpg (what!) an it cant be cropped in Layout (WHAT!) so lots of editing of the image prior to import only to repeat the process if the AutoCAD file is updated .... Ughhh!
The same is partially true for images (renders in this case), no ability to crop is really REALLY annoying.
Bonus Kubity links:
The Building: https://www.kubity.com/p/5twhNp
Cladding Detail: https://www.kubity.com/p/M6O1Tt
Heres some pages from a recent project, this is the 1st time I've used Layout in anger .... colour me impressed.
Parallels have issued a KB article asking users NOT to upgrade to Win8 until they have found/fixed some problems
http://kb.parallels.com/114973
Wow, that's truly impressive.
Well done and congrats on getting the cover of GQ
Have a look at this topic, Richard used Squarespace.
It looks very good.
That's so perfectly simple its almost painful that it never dawned on me before!!
Well done on seeing the obvious and explaining it. 
I never work in the perspective mode, I always use ISO/non perspective. I have the 'U' key set to switch perspective on/off (old 3DS shortcut).
To switch perspective on/off select Perspective from the Camera menu, it'll have a tick against it when its on.
You may have to zoom extents after you switch as you'll probably encounter the clipping plane issue common to most 3D software.
It seems to me that in perspective the zoom in/out distance is a percentage of the distance between the eye and the pointer, in one of the images posted above there's a yellow box, with the pointer over the box the distance is, lets say 100mm and 1% is 1mm but with the pointer just to the left of the box (in free space) the distance is, lets say 1km and 1% of that is 1000mm. Very different results when zooming with the mouse wheel.
In the non perspective view the zoom distance is always the same irrespective of the eye/pointer positions.
I normally set up a scene called Working that has no shadows, non perspective view etc etc. so that I can quickly switch between my pretty views of the model and the mode in which I like to work.
@tadema said:
You mean one of these
John, now that's just being silly.........
We all know what he meant was one of these:
I had no problems viewing the site from Chrome on my Mac.
The sites looking good.
Let us know what you think about Squarspace, it looks quite good.
Awwwww, I feel bad now 
When I originally wrote it in 2007 I knew it could be better but it was beyond my programming abilities.
I'm chuffed its still being used and I hope somebody picks it up and gets it working the way you want.
Hello all,
I'd love to be able to help but to be honest this is the only plugin I ever wrote and looking at the code now I cant remember anything about Ruby 
If anybody want to pick it up and run with it I'm more than happy for them to do so.
Sorry.
Ignore my 'Spelling not working' message, it was Chrome not the forum.
