Knowing how to utilize Maya PaintFX is a plus. I rarely ever see it used let alone anyone talk about it. I watched several tutorials on this one feature and it's very powerful. It can do stuff that makes x-frog run for the hills as it's more powerful and versatile. Of course using Mental Rays power helps a lot.
His quote:
Thank you at all for your words, I appreciate a lot.
Yes, all are 3d plants and poly count is 900,000,000 triangles
I render all images in one pass, mr sky&sun and final gather multibounce, AO + color bleed, esposure control with mr.exposure.photographic and linear workflow (gamma 2.2), all plants and grass are paint effect poly converted.