livingroom scene
 

I have been playing around with mental ray trying to create a photo realistic scene here is what I got.

I still think it could be a lot more realistic. I used mental ray with GI and Final Gathering. Maybe I need to use caustics also. Any suggestions.

Are you sure you used GI and FG? Because it looks just like default software render lighting.... caustics will only improve realism on transparent materials such as glass so it will hardly do much difference in this scene.

What sort of light setup are you using?

You need to get some nice lights with photons in there.

couple suggestions on improving the realisme.

Add bumpmaps.

Use or HDRI based lighting, Psyc Sun, Directional Lights.

If you dont have a good light setup you will never get a realistic look, even with top range textures.

As at the moment it looks light you have not spend time on lighting.

I agree with aiko, furthermore i would use a little depth of field, the scaling of your objects also seem a bit off.

There's also a handy tool architects use to save on render time and i believe it is called portal light(hypershade-->create mental ray nodes-->mental ray lights.
It's basically a plane you align with the window which emanates a specified amount of light.(i'm affraid i don't know how to set it up out off the top of my head).
I know that it was a lot quicker then physical sun/sky and such things.

And before you go improve your textures, improve the models first right now you have gamequality models.
-bevel some edges
-the windowframe could use a lot of detailing
-pillows of your sofa need to be rounder-->if you make a poly cube set all off the subdivisions to 3, then press 3 on your keyboard with the cube selected, the cube will be a lot smoother now and behaves more like a nurbs surface, which makes it easy to shape your pillow, when your done reshaping go to modify-->convert smooth preview to polygons.

Good luck:beer:

I agree I could have worked more on the models, but I am trying to get my texturing down and mostly lighting. I agree the models are game quality right now and could be a little more realistic on some of them. I am trying hard to create realistic lighting though because i KNOW i CAN MAKE the models more detailed. I did a realistic microphone that I will post, but I am trying to get this realistic lighting and texturing down so I don't diminish my models that I spend time detailing, thats why the scene is not as detailed as you would expect.

You can not create a realistic scene without creating a realistic model.
It's the whole package that counts.

:beer:

Although I think it is possible to get this scene pretty realistic as it is.