Cheers Travis,

to get the renders I use mental ray and a physical sun set up.
1st goto window>settings and prefs>plug in manager now make sure Mayatomr.mll is checked. Now you need to open your render settings and make sure you are using mental ray. Next goto the indirect lighting tab in your render settings and hit the create option for physical sun and sky. You can now goto the quality tab and select production for a decent render, next in the features tab you will need to make sure final gather is checked. Only other option worth changing in here is under the common tab> enable color management.

This should now work fine but it is a good idea to adjust the gamma as the image can be pretty blown out. To do this you will need to open the hypershade and goto the utilities tab and select the mia exposure node. I tend to set the gamma to 1.333 but see what works for you.

If you have any questions or probs feel free to email me leondannylabyk@hotmail.com

Best of luck and hope this answers your question though.