Hi everyone! This is my first attempt at achieving photorealism....and I didn't quite the mark... I've been working at this for quite a few hours now, but I'm not really sure what else to do....does anyone have any advice?

---Beyond upping the AA

It looks stunning. But the table in the front doesnt have a shadow so dont the two chairs. ( Do I use "do" there?) May be the shadow is just too weak?

In which program did you render this?

Greetings

3ds Max

If this is 3Ds Max render - what are you doing here?

just a concept piece for something i'm planning for sandbox 3

Depth of Field?
And the carpet is blobby. Add some more detail or up the resolution.

Work on the background city. Fix the horison depth, It looks like the office is leaning towards the city.
Also darken it and desaturate it.

Night time would be cool.

The rendering looks good, but at that photoreal level it all comes down to the detail level of the modeling. Your furniture looks a little strange - how does that coffee table stay upright with just 2 legs? Why is that tall-backed chair so thin and seated so low? What's with the super-thick electrical cord?

What you want at this point is detail, detail, detail. Chamfer everything, don't leave a hard edge anywhere. Make cylinders and tubes have an insanely high segment count. Model every little plastic seam and gap on the PC screen and the table.

Add small, nearly unnoticeable detail, stuff that you usually see in photographs: books and papers just barely visible on the rack, post-it notes on the desk, electrical cords coming out of the plugs on the wall, leaves of indoor plants poking out of the edge of the image, etc. etc. Once you get convincing enough furniture and props, real-looking renderings come automatically!

No need to chamfer everything for rendering. He can use Round Corners feature:



Same geometry. First with Round Corners on, second without that feature.

UPDATE

any reactions?

Once again - wrong forum. You should ask about 3Ds Max renders quality (C&C) at CGSociety and etc.

Would be helpful if you posted previous and current images together,saves scrolling up and down the page...Looks improved to me though,carpet especially.

http://i54.tinypic.com/ncifxz.jpg (Updated)

As BuLL said, carpet looks better. Looks more realistic in the new picture.
I like the mini-golf, and the bookshelf looks nice.
Just keep adding more little stuff and details.

Also, I think the higher res background image would look a lot better than this one.

All in all looks pretty nice.