Thanks John. 3 diffuse layers. Home made grey brick grid over a noise layer with a dirt map on top. It took a bit of trial and error with the transparencies of the dirt and brick layers to get the appearance I was looking for.

Thanks Bob, Some very useful advice to bear in mind. Nice job Chris, The cropping does help alot. Now to just improve my PS skills with those tricky people.

Well done!

These are like brushes actually. Usually you can choose to burn (or dodge) highlights mid tones or shadows. I don't know much about photopaint, but should be there.

what i like most is the glow.

Thanks Guys, Very useful comments, I'll work on the ivy and the stone. Dylan, these were done with VRay, the plants added in photoshop then soft focus added with paint.net. Adam thanks again for the plants. Ed

Another vote for camstudio - we use it at work to create quick tutorials all the time.

Thanks Daniel, He is a stiff, isn't he. Those figures were taken from the warehouse. I've found that adding 3d figures (without posing and tweaking all the materials in VRay first - exhausting) into the model prior to rendering reduces the realism of the output. Hence the silhouettes in the other pic. Ed

@psallan said: I'm having the same problem with a file of mine... it won't render at all... even though it did before! the file weighs about 32Mb, has a few jpeg textures of facades, etc. but no displacement or anything... what can I do?? What version do you have?

Hi , this is a vidéo from me showing you how to resume a render in vray for max after closing the program an the PC !you can get a result of the render in High resolution and correct some mistakes. Sorry for the language of the vidéo ; Im blue in english , you can follow it step per step https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFiXs73iB-A%26amp;list=UUS2W4WAj8rAUCJz5HSpyhAw The render done with this method in three times [image: bec9xy.jpg]

Thanks Ross, The budget for this shop is "as cheap as possible". 'Makuti' thatch is made from coconut palm leaves and is as cheap as roof coverings come here. The whole construction should cost approx US$4,000. The charity is called Love Shack as it cares for Sick, Homeless and Abandoned Children in Kenya. The large sign on the wall is maybe not such a great idea, looking at it now I see what you mean about a sex shop. Don't want to get gimps and doggers in there do we? A small subtle sign by the door should suffice. I'll be sure to post the pics when the building is done. Cheers, Ed

Thanks guys. I'm using the 1.0.9 version. Thought it was a problem with my settings... Roll on version 12

Wow! That was quick. Thanks Chris. It worked like a charm. Cheers