rabidrabbit said:
Doesn't quite look like an architectural pre-construction rendering. They usually have less detail on the surroundings.
My friend and his father do this for a living, and what I can really say is "it depends on the job." If the client wants to see a proposed building in the cityscape it would be accompanying, then they'll strive to deliver that to them. Amusingly, that prominent guy in white in the lower-right hand looks somewhat familiar. (Sharing "people resources" isn't uncommon.)
There actually isn't all TOO much to see building-wise in the background (that one major one on the left, really, and the rest you can barely make out anyway), and they could quite easily have used a previous project (or have an unused sample build) to add flavor to the scene, rather than make it all about the single building. (Both buildings do strike me as a bit over the top, as many architectural designs are to give a good first impression to a client.)
The other details, though...? The trees, lamps, cars and people are quite easy to slip into a scene, and is not actually more than I've seen my friend do on some stripmall projects and the like. (They'd just have a "suburb" background filled with more hills or trees rather than other buildings.) After designing the project building, the render time is what actually takes the huge time afterward--spending an extra hour or two on the "living details"--if you will--isn't much of a bother at all.
The only real bother I can see from the other building is that it, too, has a lot of reflective surfaces (especially considering the number of light sources), so that will add a lot of processing time to the project. If they're a reasonably sized company, though, they likely have a beefy workstation to kick this out. (With my friend, 2 day renders are uncommon but not unheard of. I'd estimate that a job like this for him, though--if all those lamps are true light sources--would be 5+ days. Rough estimate of course... but I'll ask him. ^_^ )
At any rate I can't say for sure, but this strikes me as an architectural render.
