Well, the render did it's job. It is meant to be a "after hours" art gallery.
Art galleries are typically "cold" spaces. Cold in the sense that the artwork is meant to stand out and the rest of building should never take away from it.
Thanks again. Great comments.
Scott
"The guy" is not flipping anyone off, just a favorite image of mine. sums up my feelings some days. 
Thanks for all your comments.
Scott
First decent output from Vray. Still needs some cleanup work but I am quite happy with the initial results. Comment welcome.
Scott
Thanks for the tip Pete. Podium is fast becoming my render engine of choice for the beginning stages of modeling/rendering.
Scott
Thanks Dan. I have to say I am quite impressed with podium so far. For the money it is a great tool.
Scott
Syburn,
I beta tested for Impression and did like it but it had is quirks too. If you follow the idea of using blocks in Autocad then you will be fine. It takes a bit to get used to it, but once you do you can get some nice images out of it. If I remember right it is only $500 or so.
Scott
Here is my first real attempt with Podium (and help from Solo). It amazes me the results of this compared to rendering software of a far higher cost. Render time was a bit slow but not too bad. Comments are welcome.
Thanks again Solo!
Best regards,
Scott
Really nice work. I think my only comment would be that the leaves on the tree are the only thing taking away from the detail of the render. Change that and you would have a really cool render.
Nice work.
Ivica is always good for chiming in with his comments!
Scott
I agree, these are great renders. I would just take the white on the railing in the second image down a bit. It is just too white and really draws your eye to it and not the overall composition. Great lighting though.
Scott
Tom,
I can use the scroll wheel but this mouse has a side button that zooms a small window that you can drag around the screen. While it is a cool little feature I still not not use it. I have to say that once shutting down ipoint I have not had a black screen yet.
Scott
Tom,
Go to task manager and end process "ipoint". I did that and it has yet to give me the balck screen. Of course now I can not use the zoom function on the mouse but for now I am fine with that.
Scott
And here it is......
Is the same thing your seeing tom?
Scott
Tom,
Yes the blackscreen does not last long but can really get on ones nerves after a bit. Hopefully we can hear of a fix soon.
Scott
Prodigiua,
Thanks for your kind words> Rendering is not all that difficult once you understand the basics of whatever program you choose. I currently use Vray but just recently purchased Podium as well. Vray does an amazing job of rendering and is not nearly as hard as some will make it out to be. My biggest advice is great texturing and taking you time with lighting will make a huge difference but will never correct or make a bad model look good. Start with a great model and then rendering is that much easier in the end. You already have those skills so rendering should be easy.
Scott
Tom,
I thought it was just me. On my work desktop I have SU lock up on me, kind of. It goes completely black but I can still see the toolbars. It sits like that for a few minutes and then all is ok again. I thought it was an autosave problem but then it started doing it within minutes of the time before. All of this started after buying a new mouse and also installing the drivers for a microsoft comfort mouse 3000 (intelimouse 6.1 I think). That machine is running a quadro fx 5600. I have not been able to get it to stop either. Weird thing though is I am also running a dell M90 laptop and installed the drivers for the mouse on that as well and have not had an issue yet and that laptop runs a quadro card as well. Not sure what to do because I am close to putting my fist through the LCD at work after about a half an hour of the black screens. Once I get into work on monday I will do a screen capture of the black screen and post it here.
Scott
I am typing right now on my Dell M90.
Dell M90
4gb ram
160gb drive
nvidia quadro fx2500
All I can say is you will be nothing but happy with this purchase. The M6300 replaces the M90 but if it is anything like mine it is a real desktop replacement. The only downfall is the weight. It is not something I want to carry around everyday (but do). It renders really quick and the 17" screen makes if fairly painless to work with sketchup or any other design programs.
Scott
I think you are off to a good start and like the overall feel, but I would add more segments to the main arch. It does not look smooth as it should. Just my two cents.
Scott
I think you should always model for accuracy. I have found too many times I have had to go back and change things after the fact and if I would have modeled accurately in the first place there would have been no need to. Accuracy saves time and money in the end.
Scott