I have been quietly following this thread, really nice work Ronald. Regarding the box, I think what makes it look a bit odd is that the grain of the timber wraps around the front, sides and back. This makes it look as if a thin veneer or self-adhesive woodgrain vinyl has been wrapped around the box, rather than appearing made from timber panels. I would tweak the UV coords of the side faces of the box, inside and out, to shift the grain such that it no longer lines up perfectly at the corners, which should reduce this illusion.
You could also consider the construction of the box itself. With the current design each panel would need to be bevelled to 45 degrees at the ends and glued and/or pinned together, and while this is certainly an effective construction technique it would most likely result in a slight gap or irregularity at the corners since it would be difficult to work wood to achieve a perfectly sharp edge. Perhaps the construction could be simpler, showing the ends of the front panels in the side faces, like this:
http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0042/2962/products/deloraine-stripy-myrtle-two-layer-jewellery-box-1_1024x1024.jpg?v=1323229306, with an end-grain texture in the narrow faces, or even simulating dovetailing like this:
http://www.simonzablotsky.com.au/timber/gallery3_14_58_enl.jpg might help improve realism.
I would also render a separate greyscale AO layer that can be combined with the original image in something like Photoshop or Gimp, this would allow you to control the intensity of the AO shadows. Creating a similar layer for actual shadows could also be considered. It is generally a bit tricky to get a really well balanced render directly from any renderer, creating separate layers and combining outside of Anim8or is a good way to gain additional control over the output and is pretty much standard practice for many applications.
Once again, always great to see some fine work being done with Anim8or, sometimes I forget how impressive the ART renderer can be.
