Back in my early rendering days, there weren't any open-source rendering programs, and things like 3D Studio were way out of my price range. So I picked up Accurender, which integrated nicely into my existing AutoCAD 13 software, and gave me enough tools to create some fairly decent spacecraft shots. Over the years, I got pretty good with it. Unfortunately, the only thing this software will run on now is my old XP laptop.

I've got 3DS Max on my current 64 bit machine (and Blender, just for kicks), but not sure this old dog is going to want to learn a lot of new art tricks at this point. Most of my work now is Solidworks-related engineering, and although there's a nice Photorender package included with it, the system seems geared to making presentation images of mechanical assemblies. Everything I've done so far looks less like a photoreal image and more like something photographed in a studio, even outdoor images of large aircraft.