Just to show that lighting and render settings can make all the difference, these are some renders of an asset in progress:
Scanline Default Rendering:
[IMiG]http://www.nokkonwud.com/3d/renders/01.jpg[/IMG]
Scanline w/ Light Tracer [2 Bounces] Rendering:
[IMGi]http://www.nokkonwud.com/3d/renders/02.jpg[/IMG]
Mental Ray w/ Default Medium Final Gather Rendering:
[IMGi]http://www.nokkonwud.com/3d/renders/03.jpg[/IMG]
Mental Raw w/ Tweaked Settings Rendering:
As you can see, settings can make all the difference in the world to how something comes out. The first thing I always tell people who use 3D Studio Max is that people need to learn to crawl before they can walk. Rendering and composition is one of the hardest parts of 3D Studio Max and even the experts are still learning, so what chance do we have?
How long did that take to render and on what spec? I find FG a pain for rendering times, maybe cos I haven't learnt to tweak lol