Similar to my approach mentioned above. I'm glad these work in Thea.

@solo said:

Tom, they work in Thea, just had to adjust the transparency in SU before export.

Straight Thea output with Bloom and vignetting, no post processing.

Pete: you didn't have to do anything additional in Thea? What kind of transparency adjustment in SU?

I did find a workaround. I first turn off the shadow layer of Tom's trees in SU. Then, in Thea studio I set the clipping texture to the alpha image (enabling clipping and setting channel to Alpha rather than RGB). I also find that in scattering that I need to set the Index of Refraction to 1 rather to 1.5.

Trying to figure out how to make these trees render properly in Maxwell or the new Thea Render. They render perfectly in Twilight, but not in MR or Thea. Anyone else tried?

Roger: another good solution! And this could be done for multiple colors as well..

Leminilab: If you have access to Twilight render (on PC) you can add lights quite easily (I'm sure Kerkythea or others would do the job as well). Otherwise, you will need to add them in post as you suggest. This is not complicated, but requires some experimentation. In Photoshop one way to do it is to add a layer above your rendered image (Screen blend mode) and using a soft brush in the right color begin to paint over the areas where the light would be cast. For each color of light create a separate layer. Reduce the opacity of the brush as you get farther from the light source. There are other ways to achieve this with layer masks, all depends on what you prefer to do. If you take time you can actually achieve a result that is just as good if not better than using render software.

I agree that light is needed in the low foreground to give a little more interest to the image. Keep in mind though, that adding light there will expose the two-dimensionality of the people, so I wouldn't shed much light on them. As for the lady in the frame I don't see the problem you are seeing, because I don't know where the light source is.

I think this is a great image..really sets a mood for the space.

I think you have done a really nice job with this one and I much prefer this version to the original. The background gives the building more presence. I would prefer to see more color, though. Perhaps sprinkle some bright flowers among the grasses in the foreground? Maybe put hints of furniture inside the house? Also there seems to be a bunch of disconnected leaves at the gap to the right above the house. Is there a problem with the sky to the far right? You might experiment with different Vue atmospheres also.

Which version of Vue are you using? It is really hard to beat it for massed vegetation.

Fymoro: Really nice work! Your interiors are looking very good! My only crit is the material on the railing against the back wall doesn't look quite right. With so many lights rendering in two hours is amazing. What hardware do you have?

As you know, I really like this style of presentation, and both of these are well done, especially the second one..my comment on the first one is: what are you trying to portray, the home or the countryside? If it is an architectural render I would expect the home to be more prominent. In the second one, perhaps you could make the foreground trees more transparent to allow the foreground building to be seen better. Did you render the background as an HDRI or insert it in post?

Well they look great in Twilight, but I'm on my Mac and cant use Twilight. Still hoping they come out with a Mac version.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to use these trees with Maxwell Render?

I think this is a great concept! I'd work out there! You might try lighting the interior more to improve visibility of the machines. Also it looks like the rock wall needs a bump map.

I'm still bothered by the dark background..."there's a storm coming!"

If you are on a Windows machine you should look at Twilight render. It does a wonderful job and might help you with the artificial lighting. Also, I agree with the camera angle comment, especially on the second render. You should try to get more of a two-point perspective. Excellent job overall. Personally I would lighten the colors of walls and ceiling, but I'm not the client.

Any idea how I would use component spray in that way? Let's say I have cylinder that I want to scatter some components inside of. I can select the cylinder and do a spray by selection, but that won't distribute the components inside the cylinder will it?

Is there any way to scatter a component randomly in 3D space, but force those components to stay within certain boundaries (for example, scattering marbles randomly inside a box or cylinder)?

How do you like working in ArtRage? Better than Photoshop? I really like what you have done.

It's great to see this experiment! It will be cool to watch it develop. I'm not familiar with Wings3D, but will look at it after seeing this.

I guess I risk being the only critic here...but here goes! I think the background is emphasized too much and it not only detracts from the building and other elements, but creates an oppressively gray overcast mood, whereas all your active people and shadows suggest to me a bright sunny day. You might try removing the background and inserting something more transparent in post. Also the one plant in the center of each "lawn" seems odd.

The one difficulty with applying textures (which probably have a color)is that when viewed in grayscale the gray tones may be too similar. I think you've done a really good job keeping these images readable. And the modeling is nicely detailed.

I don't think diffuse glow is the way to go. Maybe take some photos inside your bathroom to get some sense of what the exposure would look like, or look at similar photos on the web. Then you should be able to paint that onto a separate layer in Photoshop to simulate the overexposure. I don't use Vray, so maybe the Vray gurus here can help you with getting the exposure in the render.
Adding the pebble texture in post is certainly fine, just keep an eye out for lighting and how well the image overlay fits with the color balance and contrast of the rest of the image.