Work­ing with light­ing in the pro­gram.  It’s dif­fi­cult, but not for the rea­sons you’d expect.  It just takes so long for the lights to ren­der, espe­cially when you throw shad­ows into the mix.  I’m still play­ing with it, but this is what I have thus far.  It was enough to fool Ian into think­ing it was a photo, but it’s nowhere near perfect.  :)

Learn­ing how to apply mate­ri­als to objects in 3ds max.  My first attempt was using most of the mate­ri­als the pro­gram pro­vides.  Even­tu­ally, I got a lit­tle wiser and start­ing going around the house tak­ing pic­tures of var­i­ous wood sur­faces and some of the walls.  I don’t think I’ll ever use the wood mate­r­ial in the pro­gram again.  It just looks very, very fake.  Here’s the end result.  I’m still work­ing on more objects for the room, but it’s look­ing pretty good thus far.

I think I’m start­ing to get the hang of the pro­gram.  I’m mak­ing a room for Sleep­ing Beauty.  Loft­ing has become one of my favorite tools.