IRAY Renderings and Thoughts

Here are some renderings I have done in the past couple weeks using IRAY.  The scenes are quite simple to keep them under the RAM limitations of my GPU (GTX 470).  The images were saved as PNG files and then I replaced the sky.  I've never had great luck with the sky's out of MAX using IRAY or mental ray for that matter.  As I mentioned in a previous post.  It doesn't take much for a scene to hit a 1.5gb RAM ceiling.  As soon as you start adding some serious texture maps and get the polygon face count up by adding some trees or people you are likely to run into problems if you aren't using a TESLA or Quadro with some hefty RAM numbers.  Unfortunately, those cards are a little too expensive for me.  I've noticed that ATI has a myriad of reasonably priced cards on market with 2-4 gb of RAM and I think NVIDIA will follow suit in the coming 6 months. That will make IRAY a real front-runner for CG artists seeking photo-realistic renderings.  IRAY does have a lot of limitations at the moment however; the inability to achieve render-passes like AO or simple material ID channels for use in photoshop is very limiting and can make post-production a PITA.  I'm pretty sure that the ability is coming from what I have read.  The next iteration of IRAY will be a significant update.  In terms of animation there is a different set of limitations and things to think about: HERE.