Just playin around trying to do some realistic renders…
A big red play ball in the grass behind the house…
A big file, otherwise colors suck. Some post processing in Photoshop.
-niko20
Whats with the halo…or lensflare…which ever? It takes away from the realisticness…IMO. But the render is nice 
I added that in Photoshop, thought it might make it better, guess I can “not” put it in in Photoshop LOL.
I still need more dead grass, and some dandelions or something, and I thought about putting in a hose on the right side, kinda laying out, to properly weight the image. Just haven’t gotten to it yet.
-nt20
It’s nice, but the white part of the wall looks odd.
Yes, I’m not sure what to do about that yet…it’s supposed to be vinyl siding. I have the texture somewhat correct I think, but perhaps it’s not the right angle…or it needs some “dirt”-i-fying. Maybe it just needs to be brighter.
I need to get some reference photos from a house to use, got the digital camera ready, but just have to leave work now lol 
I do need more dead grass I think too.
-nt20
I didn’t notice the vinyl siding, so it’s okay. I only noticed the cement (it’s a tich too-light) when you mentioned it. What I focused on immediately was the specular, shiny ball.
Gentlemen, start your textures. A rubber four-square ball has a somewhat mottled texture, as far as light is concerned, and it also has some regular bump-map texture that’s used to enable you to grip it easily. If these textures were applied spherically to the ball material I think you’d suddenly find the picture much more acceptable.
And with very little additional work.
You can always find “something wrong” with a CG image if you look close enough… but the eye really doesn’t do that. (You can get away with murder. David Copperfield does it for a living.) If it’s going to reject an image it’s gonna do it for a “great big fat Greek” reason, not a little one. In this case the GBFG problem is the unbelievable texture on the ball. Once that’s fixed, the eye will shrug-off the little stuff. imho…
Well, if you look at play balls at Wal-Mart, they don’t have any real “grip” texture, but I agree they are a bit “mottled”. Now I’m trying to see how to go about achieving that look lol ! I’m thinking even a basic cloud texture might do the trick.
I’ve also tried making the ball look more “transluscent”, or “glowing”, by making another mesh inside this mesh, but I need to do more texture research obviously.
I could post another pic later. (Also, no lens flare anymore too)
Thanks for the feedback all 
-niko
you guys are all missing it - the ball is too low!