If you are using Accurender, you will probably wish to use the Radiosity attachment for indoor scenes. This will check light as it truly bounces off surfaces in the rendering. Light can make or kill a rendering. Think about how the lights will illuminate a table, sconces on walls, pendent lights on a shiny floor, etc. as this can make a dramatic effect in the scene. Radiosity can take a long time to generate, and it is considered normal to cancel a radiosity map routine when it is about 70% to 90% done. The longer it thinks, the less impact the bounces will have. One bounce of light off a wall can have a large impact. Light bouncing off the wall, onto the floor, then onto a different wall, and by the time it hits the ceiling, the amount of light left over is so minimal that it will not influence the scene in any particular way. Accurender is considered one of the best radiosity programs around. Lightscape is also very good, and you can see examples of what it can do in most of the magazines. However Lightscape is very finicky about how the model is created. There can be no overlapping planes or the radiosity map goes awry. 3D Max 2 can now do radiosity, and you can also get a plug in for it also for more features, however most critics give Max's radiosity a bum rap.
Ok, so you created an image. Great, except that sky's not quite what your client had in mind. And that white van parked out front of building has got to go. Ok... no problem. Again, PhotoShop and Painter to the rescue. Wait, you say it's not just an image, but an AVI file? Still no problem. You can load an AVI file into Painter, edit each frame, add in other items and frames and save it back out as an AVI. You may also want t pick up a public domain copy of a Morphing program to morph between different pictures.
