I know the last one was a WIP and it shouldn't have mirrorerd windows, but it did look a heck of a lot better than this. The surfaces have flattened big time - but I guess if you're going for a cartoony-look maybe that's a good thing. Hope you get the look you're going for (maybe set up an HDRI lighting sphere outside the kitchen so it looks real outside and you get image-based lighting bouncing around inside?), all the best, S.

I agree on the fact that the previous one looked better in a lot of ways. Though the floor in the last one wasn't where I wanted it. But when I changed the lighting from the last model to this model, I ran into a few problems. If you have any advice on this, it might help. The goal here is a learning exercise to use only Mental Ray global illumination lights and final gather in order to learn how to properly use the renderer. I want to light the room based solely on global illumination at the moment to use as a default rig, and then accentuate that later with a few non global lights to put in the dining room and wherever else. The glass is right in this, as is the floor, but the walls and celing look horrible, as you say, and that's what I'm wrestling with. As for HDRI, I have no experience whatsoever with that other than a little reading, and finding out so far that the tools for HDRI are all Windows based and I'm on a Mac. If you're aware of some for the Mac that I haven't found yet, perhaps you can point me in the right direction? Though this will be something to do after I get the Mental Ray Global Illum. & Final Gather to work by itself. But thank you for the comment, it seems so seldom that people will give constructive criticism in this particular gallery, as opposed to just praising that which looks awesome. Thanks! ^^