Chess.

Thanks very much slepalex.

Great lighting! Material chess resembles polished marble, covered with icing. Material chess board, too? In my opinion, it has too much reflection ... One of my first works published here, too, were chess (modeled in Bryce, the wooden material). I'll have to get them out of an old trunk and do the job with modern lighting.

Thanks very much electro-elvis. No the HDRI is not one of my own but it seemed to fit the scene ok. I thought the view was ok because the chess board is sitting on a glass topped table. if I was sitting at the table then surely I would be looking down on it. I agree the horse and the globe are a bit too sharp but I did'nt want to blur the chess pieces that are at the back. May be I could have blurred them a little but I'm a bit impatient and after rendering for 4 hours I thought "that will do".

Your are right, everybody, who is dealing with 3D software someday has to build a chess board. ;-) So had I, too. But yours looks much better. The globe especially looks very nice.Have you done the HDRI by yourself? I think, the chess board and the HDRI background have not the same vanishing point. The camera (or point of view) of the board should be IMHO a bit less high. Another point is the DOF. For my taste the globe and the horse looks a bit too crisp, but this might be a matter of taste. Surely a great render.

Thanks very much Horo and yes the windows are part of the HDRI. I was just going to use the light from the HDRI and create a seperate backdrop but decided to use the image for it instead.

Very nicely done. I like the globe. the HDRI backdrop is just righly burned-out. This looks very photo-realistic. The windows belong also to the HDRI backdrop judging from the chromatic aberration visible on the frame. DOF is also very nicely balanced.