For the last three years I've done POV-Ray models of the FIRST fields. It's such an amazing program. It might not be able to do animation as well as the 3ds software, but it can render REALLY nice stills. It's completely ray-traced, so the lighting and reflections come out great. It's hard to model free-hand because there is no visual GUI, just text-based. But when you have exact measurements to work from, it's actually pretty easy.
Here's this year's field:
http://web.mit.edu/scolton/www/05field.html
You can also download POV-Ray source and the diamondplate texture from that page.
__________________
MIT Mechanical Engineering
>> College Mentor,
Team 97: Cambridge Rindge and Latin School with The Edgerton Center, MIT Mechanical Engineering, Bluefin Robotics, and Draper Laboratory
>> Alumnus, Team 527: Plainedge HS