Hi David, sorry for taking a while to check in.

I agree with Michael, I like the render. Actually, I think your render is pretty much on a par with my stuff. It is all just tweaking from here and there really is only so far you can go without assistance from the software.

I took a look at Vue following Michael's post. I last looked at it at version 6 and thought the interface was OK, not great but OK (MoI has the only interface I've tried that I think is genuinely great though). Performance was OK but my computer back then wasn't much chop. "Pioneer" appears to be the free version (600mb download!) and they have lots of upgrade packages from there. Not sure what Pioneer's water capabilities are but I know that higher up the scale it will do displacement. The PLE version saves to a different format I believe and anything created in there will be stuck in there so Pioneer is probably a better bet for testing purposes. I like Eon's pricing structure too, seems to be something for everyone price wise. I really am pretty tempted by the $800 "Complete" package and should be able to afford it after June (and perhaps a license for Rhino). I did flirt with the idea of buying Max but having played with the trial and at the ridiculous price, I can't bring myself to feed the Autodesk machine. For the price of Max I could buy 3 copies of Vue Complete and 3 copies of Rhino! Even then I reckon I'd still need to buy plugins.

I quite like this Vue render...

http://www.e-onsoftware.com/showcase/Pictures/Shadow/Technical/1240050691.jpg

These are pretty fantastic too...

http://dreahorvath.darkfolio.com/