Quote - That's likely true. Why send away 3D hobbyists disillusioned and unhappy? Especially since these are the very 3D hobbyists spending the most money on products. They see the luscious promotional images on product pages and think, "If only I had more stuff in my runtime, I could do renders like that!" It's a natural thought, and one that vendors encourage, I would think.

Of course the render is only half the battle (OK maybe more than half) for such images. Then comes postwork! 

No doubt you're right here.

I use the galleries as resources when I'm product hunting.

If someone's product looks good even in a crappy render, I'm always impressed. The wide variety of abilities in rendering (and postwork) really does put those products through their paces. Promo images are rarely sufficient.

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PoserPro 2014, PS CS5.5 Ext, Nikon D300. Win 8, i7-4770 @ 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon 8570, 12 GB RAM.