Here's some of my own results using an independently developed process, perhaps they will help.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3053/2628999579_1f1d407d9e_o.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3105/2629534252_5126c67860_o.jpg
http://www.majhost.com/gallery/sastrei/BrickSpace2/dev10.jpg

-Stefan-

Thanks, WC, for taking the time to write this. I personally found it helpful. It's not perfect, but for a beginner it's pretty helpful.

Urenze:

• I'm not an expert here, so I won't be too specific - but yes, radiosity does have more effects than you originally thought.

• There are many different ways to set up the lighting for a scene like this. I used an inverse square spotlamp (and I believe the reason it was so far away was to give a perfect evenly-lit look for that shot), but this can be confusing. For most scenes, a sun lamp would probably work just as well (or better), in which case an energy of only about 2 is needed, and the distance and position of the lamp doesn't really matter.

I see there have been some complaints about the tutorial. Bmud: remember that what seems simple to you might not seem so to others. I know that when I was first learning all this, I would have really benefited from a tutorial like this one. I'm not a Blender expert yet, but I'm happy to share what I do know!

This article also reminds me of this image I stumbled upon in the modo site's menu
http://www.luxology.com/whatismodo/
but I can't seem to find a full-size image. A photo-real mini lego pod race would be really cool if you ask me :P

Hey look, you can model Legos in 3D! Dur!

http://www.ldraw.org
http://www.leocad.org

Hey, you can import them in to Blender - no surprise since it imports practically everything!
Then you can press render with the renderer of your choice. No duh.

I've just tried this tutorial. Thanks for posting it! However, I had some issues when following it (please bear in mind that I been using Blender for 2 weeks, only):

- The distance of the lamp to the bricks is not described, so I just set it close to them, as I have done in previous scenes and seen in other tutorials.

- At first, I used a Mesh-Cube. As a result, I obtained an overexposed scene that the gamma node only made worse.

- Seeing this, I decided to append the white brick from Jordan's .blend file to my scene. The brick looked no so overexposed, but computer-made once rendered. Worse still, I could see that the sides appeared bent, as they do when seen through the 3D view.

- I opened the original .blend file, and included some meshes and appended objects of mine, and everything looked fine.

- I went over all the settings in the original file to make sure that I had them replicated in my own file. At last I noticed that I had not set the Radiosity rendering button on. This solved the bent sides, and everything looked great.

However, I still have some pressing questions, and I woud greately appreciate if someone could be so kind as to help me out with them:

1) I thought that the Radiosity rendering button was only needed if the object has been previously prepared for it. I suppose this is incorrect, isn't it?

2) Why is 5000 the distance set for the lamp? In other tutorials it is only 40 or 100.

3) Why is the lamp's position located that far away from the actual objects in the 3D view (x=50+, y=50+, z=90+, if I remember correctly)?

4) Why is 7 the energy of the lamp? In other tutorials it is only 1 or 2; 8 or 10 when using Yafray.

5) Relating to 2-3: Can't we have similar results with lower lamp distance, position and energy?

Sorry for all these questions, but sometimes I despair when confronted to so many different ways for setting up scenes (and when I get results not as good).

Regards,
Urenze