i am wondering if it is possible to create the look of the attached image with sketchup + vray; that being, a block model of some neighbourhood, but with effects that give it a realistic look.
if it is not too much to ask, could someone tell me what tweaks are needed on the vray settings?
and what level of difficulty would you say this is?
thanks
Itās totally possible.
I think you need some:
Progressive renders (indefinite) are more accurate than renders with a set end time.
I think modeling that would be incredibly difficult, but I think you could model the skyscraper facade with CLF shape bender or flowify.
V-Ray can make extremely realistic renders, but I use Twilight Render because itās free & easier to use.
Looks like that could be a straightforward renderā¦even with an old graphics card !
looks like a soft light source on one side or a sun with soft shadows. Hard to tell if this was a render or model - looks like a photo? because of DOF, but as a render you could mimic that or not have it so it looks less like a small model. One look for this kind of thing is a āclayā render, but while this is predominantly white there are other colors (trees) showing thru.
for modelling, i just intend to do blocks, nothing fancy
I just grabbed this city model from the 3D wharehouse, applied one large panel light and some DOF and gave it a quick render. Iām not using Vray, but Vray will do the same. When you say realistic, do you mean realistic so it looks like a foamcore/plastic scale model. If so I think you can build a little imperfection into the model and give the surfaces a little reflection/sheen, maybe SSS, but that will increase render times, but not sure you need?
you could get this model and play first.
In VRay all you need to do is select āMaterial Overrideā and choose from the āDiagrammaticā section of the default materials. You can āun-overrideā any material you want, like the glass. Then just adjust depth of field or manually do it in Photoshop.
that is the look im going for!
Then I think you will be easily able to achieve this. The sketchup part is very simple blocks etc. I would download a model from 3D wharehouse like I did and play with it. Assume you have V-Ray so you can experiment. I know you say your graphics card is old, but I imagine it is able to run renders through v ray ok.
Attached an overview of what I did showing the light panel. I also added a little ambient light so it was not so contrasty.
Also note, the city model imports huge (city scale) so I scaled it down to a āmodelā size, just so that a shorter depth of field would work.
il check this out. thank you so much WhiteRabbit 
