Smile of Fury

http://isthisretina.com/ That might be one of the calculators you've come across, but I always find it helpful. Really drives home the point that what you consider to be a crisp image depends on your viewing distance. So yes, if you want a magazine quality glossy image on 11x17, you need a ton of pixels. If you want to hang that on your wall, you can probably get away with significantly less and it will look perfectly fine. In school I printed 36" x 72" boards at a resolution of 100 PPI and everything looked fine...to the jurors sitting 5 feet away.

I think the cor-ten panels are the best part, but they're hidden by too much lens flare, compared to the rest of the image. - Desaturate the grass or maybe replace it all with the long grass growing on the other side of the fence - Dirty up the fence - Put the dog running next to the man or move somewhere else - The dirty bricks are too uniformly dirty - Background on right too in focus

There are plenty of threads that discuss this specific question...and most agree that the Suite Workflow is NOT the preferred method. Export your own FBX from 3D Views and use File Link Manager in Max. When updating your FBX links check Preserve Material Assignments (or whatever the option is called) and everything will stay the way you want...including VRAY Materials. That said, File Link Manager is beyond broken in Max 2016, so stick with 2015 if you can. Perhaps Suite Workflow works better in 2016? I haven't tried it and haven't searched for whether or not that's been solved.

I think if you get many responses they'll basically say, "Do what works for you." For reference, I'm an architect who enjoys visualization, maybe similar to yourself. I freelance visualizaton jobs here and there, when it makes sense. I'd say at a rate of less than one per month. I've browsed the different freelance sites, but so far have not bid on many, nor won any contracts. It seems to mostly be people asking for 8 simple high quality renders of their proposed hotel and only want to pay $200. "If you know what you're doing it shouldn't take very long." If the clients looking for visualization services are at all like the clients looking for architectural services I suspect they don't recognize the value of your services and the skill it takes to accomplish their goals. Personally I would rather hone my skills working for free on a personal project than race to the bottom of a bidding war. If a client doesn't understand the value I bring as opposed to the lowest bidder from wherever, I probably do not want to work with them anyway. You may feel differently. There are many threads on this forum about how much to charge. You need to figure that out for yourself, but I'd recommend not selling yourself short at the get-go. Go Reds!

So what John and Corey said is pretty much cold-hard truth. But I think you will get more useful responses if you come up with a few ideas yourself and ask for feedback. Of course a thesis is supposed to be a solution to a problem. That's not unique to you, and you shouldn't think of it as a limitation. And "problem" is a pretty subjective term. I think you'll have a lot of leeway if you come up with an intriguing topic. At this point in your studies you must have questioned why things are done a certain way, or have wanted to learn more about a specific facet of interior design or have had at least one original thought. That's what the thesis is for. And keep in mind it's not a doctorate, so you're not coming up with something brand new and never done before...you're just becoming more informed yourself. When I was in thesis (architecture) we had to write a bunch of these statements: "I am studying (blank) because I want to understand (blank) so that I can (blank). The first blank is the small topic you are studying. The second blank is a larger picture issue and the third blank is the problem you want to resolve. Just write out about 10-20 of those and you'll begin to figure out what it is you want to study.

Well I'm jealous. Was there any one particular thing they did in Photoshop that really blew you away? Like something you would have never even thought of before?

These guys are great. If you're interested in their PS work they have a lot of breakdowns on their Vimeo page and there's at least one actual PSD you can download from Ronen Bekerman.

Agree with all the above. A few more things to consider: - Increase contrast between shadows and highlights - Color correct to bring the reds/yellows down a bit - Work on glass reflections. You wouldn't be able to see through all the glass exactly the same as some is parallel to the camera, some is perpendicular, some is in shadow, some is in sun, etc. - Work on render settings to remove noise (maybe this is still just draft settings?)

What software are you using? You can get a pretty accurate-ish topo straight out of Google Earth via Sketchup and bring that into Max or Revit as an underlay. Both of those programs will give you an accurate sun path. Place your building in the correct spot above the underlay and then make simple cubes for the surrounding buildings. You can trace the footprint and then just estimate the height based on pictures. If you need more granular azimuth/altitude data I like to use this website: http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php

Yes, I think AMD is good for a budget render farm. My whole system is a few years old now, but I have an i7 workstation and two FX-8120 render nodes just like you want to do. I built each one for less than $400. You need more parts than you have listed, you should probably get 16GB RAM and you don't need a 700W PSU. There are plenty of existing threads on here to help you choose some good components.

Viscorbel to the rescue again... http://viscorbel.com/rugs-and-carpets-3ds-max-vray-tutorial/

I'll go, and hope others will post as well. I put up some grey fabric with a nice pattern over the green cubicle walls and put up some blue LED strips as well. I don't have them on very often though. The base-less monitor stand really helps clean things up as well, although my desk usually looks like Scott's.

Depends on which version of VRAY. Read this: http://forums.cgarchitect.com/78618-do-i-need-two-3ds-max-license-how-can-i-work-more-efficiently.html

If you search this site for "webinar" there are a few about creating cities with a software called Esri. Might be what you need.