It's not dead for me; it's still my major leisure activity after walking the dogs.  I still slap myself though when I let my guard down and render vacuous half-naked people standing around doing nothing much, though.  Can't seem to do a 3D render nowadays without needing to take it to Photoshop to improve it with 2D; I guess I'm more relaxed about postwork than I used to be.

My self-build system - Vista 64 on a Kingston 240GB SSD, Asus P5Q Pro MB, Quad 6600 CPU, 8 Gb Geil Black Dragon Ram, CoolerMaster HAF932 full tower chassis, EVGA Geforce GTX 750Ti Superclocked 2 Gb, Coolermaster V8 CPU aircooler, Enermax 600W Modular PSU, 240Gb SSD, 2Tb HDD storage, 28" LCD monitor, and more red LEDs than a grown man really needs.....I built it in 2008 and can't afford a new one, yet.....!

My Software - Poser Pro 2012, Photoshop, Bryce 6 and Borderlands......"Catch a  r--i---d-----e-----!"