Dude, if you hate NYC you should never visit London.

Its the people and the parking rules.

Ok,
Sorry for the delay, got busy doing school work and other things.

Here is the newest with lighting/shadow/ and a new floor

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...ya/Table-4.jpg

Its getting there but still want to make it stand out more - more real (ya i know redundant term there).

I'm all ears to hear more ideas on what to do.

for a start i would increase your anti-aliasing settings to get rid of the jagged edge. Then change the reflectivity on the material for the ground (its too reflective imo) and soften the shadows a bit by increasing the filter.
I also think the lighting looks like its burning out the floor a bit.

Changed the setting of the light so floor looks better.

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...ya/Table-5.jpg

I think this is much better:

http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r...ya/Table-6.jpg

Any better? Is it improving or do I need new glasses?

yeah, the anti aliasing quality made loads of difference.

next thing to read about is bump mapping.

Hammer,
I tell ya I'm learning a lot with this! I'm going to be so ready for the Maya classes when they start!

Ok.. Boss is loving it but of course wants better.

I know that I can't achieve this quality but its what is in his head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Glasses_800_edit.png

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...s_800_edit.png

What else am I missing then to get this to look like a real piece of furniture? Just point them out and I'll go from there.
Learning is all the fun these days!

Thanks,

Just off the top of my head, you should try adding a few different lights, add a strong directional light like you have with ray-traced shadows, (small light angle and bump up the number of rays I think), add a fill light with low intensity to relieve the really dark shadows (shadows are seldom so dark), add a "rim" directional light from behind maybe to make it pop a bit more. I would add some minor detailing in the furniture and walls, add baseboards and maybe an electrical outlet to break up the wall a bit. The handle looks a bit boxish and harsh.

Lots of stuff you could add, just some thoughts, but it's definitely improving!

I'll take any thing to improve it I can.
Gives me something to do when I get up at 4am! lol

Thank you very much!

there is still a lot to learn... when does your maya class start?

I believe in the spring. The layout of the classes are weird. I have Foresight Development and an internship right now.
The classes are every 5 weeks though (except for the internship - 15 weeks). They go by quickly. So have I'm doing sooo much better then when I was taking Mechanical Engineering at NJIT back in the early 90's.

Your wood is lacking specularity. Take a look at a real piece of processed wood, and you'll see a slight sheen to it.

If you're very ambitious, and want things to look "photo-real" without much effort, take a look into un-biased renderers. There are a bunch out there.

Maxwell (commercial $$$)
Radiance (was free)
Lux render (free and open source!)

I've used Maxwell and Lux before. Both are good, but be aware, these will take upwards of 10+ hours to render! The nice thing about Maxwell, is that there is an extensive shader library, including pretty much any type of wood, metal, etc.

Also, if you haven't already, take a look at this tutorial here: http://www.simply3dworld.com/movie_p...tml?tut_id=164

Thanks NextDesign.
I will look into them - I heard about Maxwell I think there is a demo version to get and play with.
So among the other crap I have to do today, I'll be playing with it.
And I think I am getting a job finally after being off since March. God I hope so.. Unemployment only goes so far.