thanks Mike ..yeah you are right about the textures, they seem to be a little plain to me too ......still working on them though so hopefully I can improve the look by the end of the month.
As for the lighting ...there isn't any yet ..hehe just the default with a couple of extra to help, so that will imporve toward the end.
Thanks again it's always great to get feedback from someone who knows whats what so I can improve.

update ..

Update.. the buildings are almost done, just a few tweaks here and there and a couple of more textures to add.

Looks too clean for me. If it were me, Id add some diffuse to the textures. Just my pref tho. Other than that, I like. :)

thx I-iybrid ...I am still strying to sort this texture thing out...I haven't had too much imput so I am have to search the web and read a lot...hopefully I can make the scene a little more interesting and dramatic by the end..we will see, but this has been a really good learning experience all the same if not a little frustrating too :)

All said and done this is my first ever effort so I have to be happy with it as a first go.

Nice scene.

Why not add a bit of fog and drop the lighting to resemble early morning?

thanks Garry ....yes that is one of the possibilities I am playing with...lighting is proving to be harder than texturing to me ....lol

I have found the Spotlight is the best one to play with, lots of possibilities.
I generally use three point lighting.

I.E.
1. One overhead or main direction. (Shadows turned on)
2. One Backlight to soften shadowed edges (Can be coloured to match Object - using low Intensity - No Shadows)
3. One Parallel to object to be lit (Low Intensity - No Shadows)

You can map an image to the spotlight to give interesting effects and shadows. (Simulate a cloud casting a shadow etc)

The Best thing to do is to select the Light and use
---- Panels/Look Through Selected ---
to see what objects are iluminated by it. You can then control your lighting a lot more effectivley.

I hope this helps :)

thankyou Gary ... I really appreciate the tips . I will certainly be playing with lights for a few days to try and get some kind of atmosphere :)

update... I may go with this sort of scene, I still have trees and a few things to add.

To me, the mountains in the back look kinda blank/dull, I would add some stuff there too.

How did you do the fog?

just put some fog around the mountains.

Jack for the fog I turned on Environment Fog in Render Globals and set a max height and played around with settings to get colour, spread density ect .
NightPhantom thanks for the tip..I will try and get some fog round the mountains too , although for now I can't envision where to place it ( top , middle ,bottom or a couple of whisps here and there ?).

Coming on nicely!! For a "newbie" this is some VERY impressive work!!!! Keep it up!!

I have struggled with all sorts of rendering issues for about 4 days..lol
This is where I am atand I am thinking that this is pretty much done.