I was asked by TBD if I could show my work in progress, so here is my image at the modeling stage, where I  am only 75% finished with the screen left side of the street. This will be a night shot but I made it a day time one for now so that you can see clearly the details.

I will keep on posting my progress on this thread, so stay tuned.

Second image: ok on this one I'm about 90% modeling the screen left side and 40% the right side and about 3% the building at the end of the street. Its going to be a big hotel. I also did some simple color key so that you can get a feel what the color scheme is going to be. Remember there are no textures here, this is only colors for now. Textures will come later after the geometry is build.

Third Image: I spent a few hours modeling the hotel at the end of the street, put in some quick coloring for reference. Its about 50% done because I still need to model the interior part that you will be able to see thru the windows that are now opaque with a blue color.

Fourth Image: I'm almost done with the hotel. I would say I'm at 90%. I did some of the interior as well but since I did not put any lights in yet, you cant see inside very well.
I hope that by tomorrow I'll be done modeling it and both left and right side of the street, then all that is going to be left is the floors. Cross your fingers.

Fifth Image: I figure I have maybe a day or two left on modeling and then I can start the texturing phase of this Image. So whats left to model? the street ground, the door on the balconies, I hope ill be able to use some of the pots and plants Biebel so graciously provided, light fixture on the streets (remember this is going to be a night time shot) , and of course the glass on the shopping windows. I'm sure I'm missing something but right now is 2am and I need to get some sleep.

PS: I almost forgot this image was composed with portrait aspect ratio in mind so I posted the actual aspect ratio ill be using.

Sixth Image: We are almost done with the modeling phase, all I have to do is put in a few plants on the balconies and the street, and then some light fixtures on the street and ill be ready for phase 2 which is texturing.

Seventh Image: Let me tell ya, doing organic modeling on SU is like doing surgery with an Axe.   Well, I finished the balcony flowers (and remember they have not been textured yet), so onto the street plants and light fixtures next.
 
Image eight: Phase one has been completed. For now. heh heh you never know.
   I will move on to texturing next. I included an image with 3 zones, this image  not only shows how I'm going to break apart the scene for texturing but also how I'm going to split the image when I render it at full res (3076x2304)
 when I'm done with everything.  Because there is no way my machine is going to be able to handle that this scene at that res.
    Besides it is very common in the entertainment industry to split your render in chunks. this gives you  great flexibility, faster renders, thus giving you more time to make more test for a more beautiful finished product.
    Right now I'm working on ways to create 3d alpha renders so that I'll be able to put all the pieces together cleanly in photoshop. Stay tune, as soon as I make progress with that i will pass it on to you guys.

Image nine: I finsihed the first texture pass for the red zone. I will go into more detail after I have the first lighting pass. This will ensure that I'm not putting extra work on areas that are going to be in shadow and we will not see anyway.  

Image ten: I'm about 70 % done with the texturing on the yellow zone, tonight I will texture the plants and plant holders, the balcony metal parts and doors. I do not want this is image to look like it is a ran down place because it was not, it was actually very well kept, so I did not go too crazy with the dirty and stain maps on this side.

Image eleven: I'm still working on the yellow zone, there are alot of little components that need to still be addressed. I textured the leaves on the the plants but in not 100% happy with them I will color correct them tonight. Also, I started texturing the street's floor. Its getting there but the texture  needs a little more love.

 Image Twelve: I added a few more signs for the shops and images inside the windows  displays, they are a little hard to see right now but they will be more visible when  they are lit from the inside for the night shot. So... I'm done with the yellow zone and moving onto texturing the green zone (the hotel at the end of the street). Wish me luck.
 
Image 13: So we are finally on the green zone, I'm about 40% done. I worked mainly on the street floor. I'm pretty happy with it. I believe it has the dirt in all the right places. It also has a hint of reflectivity which it will become more obvious when I get to the lighting stage. Another thing I need to do now is touch up the brick texture now, there is too much of a difference in age between the brick and the stone.
    Hmm lets see what else, oh! the hotel has the main texture applied but the sun is washing it away. Once I do more work on the hotel I will shift the sun so that it compliments more the look of the texturing, so that you can see it better.

Image 14: Green zone has been completed (for the first texture pass). Once I do the first lighting pass I will check if there are any touch up need for the textures. I also started the lighting inside the hotel. You can see the chandelier and a couple of statues I put in there. One thing I forgot about was to model the curtains inside the hotel so I guess ill be going back to modeling for a few minutes before I keep on lighting the hotels interior. BTW, I'll will "light " the scene starting from the green zone, then yellow and then red zone.

Image 15: Green zone lighting is now at 25%. 
I'm starting from the back going to the front. This is the first lighting pass for the interior of the hotel. I will light the exterior next and re balance the interior as needed. The nice thing about rendering in sections is that once I final the lighting for that section it does not need to be rendered again, all I have to do is re comp it in photoshop. Which means that when I render the yellow zone for example, I can hide the hotel geometry and lights thus saving me a ton on render times.

Image 16: the first hotel light pass is done! I decided to break the green zone in two part. The foreground part of the street and the hotel in the background. This makes more sense for compositing the image. Also the window do not have any reflection, I will do this in a separate pass after I'm done lighting the entire image. So far I have used 22 omni lights and 20 LEM and as you can see the render times are still very decent. About 25 minutes at 800x600 full quality and anti aliasing.  SO... yellow zone here I come!

Image 17: OK this is not the yellow zone but I had to touch up some things that were bugging me. I also added some people and a moon in PS to add a little more life to the image. Now! for real, yellow zone here I come!

Image 18: I've been having so much fun lighting this shot,  I just could not stop this weekend, so here is the first light pass for the yellow zone. Some of the plants and the glass reflections are left out on purpose so that the renders go faster, but as you can see, you can pretty much  tell what is going to look like with them anyway. So what Am I going to work on next? Some of my omni lights are creating burn on the window shops and doorways, so this will be fixed of course, also the floor in the foreground is just a temp floor, the way I envision this is having pools of light coming from the window displays. I think it will make the picture look very enchanting.

Image 19: This is the second pass for the yellow zone, I fixed the burns on the shops and made the street go into darkness so that it does not compete with the hotels lighting, I think I went a little too dark so im going to adjust this a little bit on the next pass, I also added the plants on the balconies and glass reflections (but those are standins until I get the lighting on the red zone done). I also added in PS  some pools of lights coming from the window, which I will render them properly when I have all the light placements on all the zones. 

Is this Capri as Capri in Italy?

i love, even in its raw way, cant wait till its done.

lol I dont think my wife will approve that. but... I do save very often so...  I think I will render a frame from each save and it should look like the street is modeled in a time lapse manner.