Thanks guys!!!!!
Yes it was fun to do something so simple! The model was delivered with the sail single skinned and pretty much lacking any detail as it is very preliminary in planning.
So I gave each panel of the sail thickness and utilised the plexiglass MXM off the gallery and presented the model this way to avoid a great deal of assumptions on my part to present it any more true to form.
The lights to the sail were added in one minute of PS postwork using the materialID to mask and then in PS Filter>Render>lights (I cheated in other words, sorry!).
The model was exported to studio from SketchUp for setup. The peeps are some Alan Frasers free samples from the SketchUp forums (now FormFonts) but mostly those collected from the SketchUp forums and those shipped with SU. All were just made neutral colour and then made plastic via MXM. In other words I just collected any and every 3D figure I had and shoved them in.
The whole scene was reduced to a scale of 1:50 to visualise better the built model aspect. I must say I do a high percentage of my presentations this way to avoid the extreme need to replicate materials to realism and also to avoid the generally hard to achieve areas where the building touches the ground, trees, plants, roadways etc.
Just to demonstrate here are two of my own designs that I presented this way. These were both done pre Maxwell days, both rendered with artlantis. The beauty about this method again is even the lack of detail required to the model in general.
- By Matteo Villa
Careful though, ...you might addict your buddy. 
Well Done
