http://www.deviantart.com/view/4951563/ There’s a description underneath the image.
C&C appreciated.
Hi,
try the Global Illumination method for lighting (spot parented to an IcoSphere, Energy of each spot equal to 1 divided by the numer of spots) instead of Radiosity.
Concerning the EnvMap, I’d totally forget them in this case: make use of an ancient stone material with no spec, and with crackles and bumpmap. The pillars need detail, as the front of the roof. If you still want to use EnvMap, please use the raytracer for accurante and easy to set reflections, set to a low level (perhaps only 0.05). Not that I’m a Ray fan, but it’s easier and saves time… of setting if not of rendering
Lastly, you could add some noise to your plane ground and then populate it with some rocks, bushes and other ruins using the fantastic Drop to Ground script 
You know, i like it. But are you planning on adding more detail to it? The pillars seem kinda plain. It does look good though…
Thanks for the comment. The global illumination thing - I’m not really sure what you mean. You make multiple lamps, then parent each lamp to a separate point on the icosphere, and select the light intensity of each lamp so 1/no. of points, so each lamp will have energy ~0.03 or something? And then the icosphere acts like a lamp?
I think you’re right about the envmap, it wasn’t suitable in this case, I was just seeing if I could work it. Btw, there’s already noise on the plane, and yes, the whole thing is too simple, but I wanted to try out a few things rather than make a perfect scene.
So I think I’ll move on, but try a few of the things you suggested in future, thanks! Btw, is the image in the avatar made by you, as it’s in the blender manual, and if so, I just have to say it’s awesome!
Yeah, the thing is lacking in detail (texture wise). I’m on a new project now, but thanks for the comment.
why does it talk about using envmaps?? dont u kno about raytracing? and also, why would there be reflection on a pillar?
That’s it. The purpose is to make very soft shadows coming from everywhere at the same time, giving very smooth lighting and radiosity-like shadows. To do so, each lamp should be a spot, of course.
Yes I did this picture with Blender 1.68 a few years ago… I’m proud it made it into the 2.0 Guide but I’m not satisfied with it anymore: basicly it was an attempt to import a Poser character into Blender and was presented at the IRTC (don’t remind the result, it was honourable but not so good). But nowadays, with the new modeling tools in Blender and even the availability of such a great tool as MakeHuman, I’m ashamed to have used (even if it was years ago) a Poser model