Thanks FooZe,

I have been using the material macros, and they do help clean things up a bit. I imagine my issues are mostly due to the type of work I do and possibly OCD

Regards,
Voo

Is there any way to customize the layout of the different viewports? I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

Right now I'm using a make-shift layout with the program stretched across two of my monitors. I moved the graph editor into the standard location for the outliner, but this isn't ideal. I ...

Nice lighting and materials. The composition of the close-up seems a little awkward, so many lines converging at a point where nothing happens. Did you model everything yourself? Also, the stacking pattern of the bowls was a nice detail.

Regards,
Ben

Personally I use a Linear response curve, 2.2 gamma, ISO 100, and various exposure settings. I do a lot of post-processing and display my work on a variety of media so I use a linear workflow.

Regards,
Ben

OK, this is a shot in the dark, as you haven't given me much to work with. I am going to assume that you have an incorrect GI setting, as this will produce the results you have mentioned. Change your kernel to pathtracing, or change the GI-mode setting to a higher value.

If that isn't the case ...

I also use Octane for large format printing. I typically do a ton of post processing so its not an issue for me, but leaving some overlap when you use lens shift will make them easier to merge.

Regards,
Ben

Beta's are never rough around the edges >.>

My two cents:

OBJ's ftw & Render passes in 2.58b

Regards,
Ben

One of my favorites for grunge textures:
http://lostandtaken.com/

Depending on how organized your modeling work is, UV unwrapping in Blender is actually quite simple. The "smart UV unwrap" tool produces decent UV's in no time at all. Octane will use the UV's to scale any tileable/procedural textures and the results are comparable to Blender's "generated" mapping ...