Rendering questions?

 From:  FelixPQ (FELIX)
4705.1 
Hi all,

from the little I know about rendering wood furniture, I realise it can be quite a lot of work. I've used both image based and procedural rendering method and both are labor intensive if you see what I mean. One as to take into account both veritical and horizontal single board and mutli board things like panels and all this without talking about joinery for example.

Understanding also that a rectangular piece of wood is relatively easy to render but when you have hundreds of pieces and you want each of them to be unique as in the real world it's complex whichever way you look at it.

So here's my question, would you have any suggestion either about methods and or about programs ( least expensive as possible) to make my life easier to render things like I posted here http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=4699.1

Thanks,
Felix