Here's a few stills of a small personal production. This was rendered on XSI 1.5 using the Final Gathering algorithm in XSI. It consists of a single object with subdivision surfaces and textured with XSI's texture editor. It's without a doubt,  the modern way to create real seamless characters. The sand is deformed with soft-bodies.

see a screen-shot of XSI 1.5 containing this scene