Welcome to my little breakdown of this render of mine. If you want to leave a comment I’d be glad to chat!
The idea for this picture came to me while looking at all those glossy indoor renderings on the net. I wanted to set a counterpart to high-tech and modern interiors - but at the same time I didn’t want anything dystopian. The times are gloomy enough.
Again and again I stumbled across the great models by Poly Haven (https://polyhaven.com/models/); see shoutout below… Their detailed old-school furniture in particular had long appealed to me.
So one and one came together and I created a living room as it might have looked in the 20s.
Outside, horse-drawn carts rattle, maybe one of the first cars is already rattling over the cobblestones? Inside there is the smell of a cold hearth fire and fresh tea as midday slips into afternoon. Maybe it’s Sunday?
But back to the technical stuff.
This is the clayrender with all the props I modelled myself.
The walls have textures from textures.com, the floor is from ambientCG.com (both textures are linked below…)
Now let’s see how it looks with all the stuff inside.
I didn’t want the furniture to look old and dusty, after all, people live here. But at the same time, the light should give a hint of age. That’s why I pitched up the goodrays and the contrasts.
But of course the lighting setup also played a role. So let’s take a look at that.
First you see the screenshot of the setting for the volume cube and my render setup.
…and then the “physical” setup; in front of the window (no glass material!) I actually placed a “real” birch tree from The Grove, through which both HDRI and a sun lamp illuminate the room…
In the screenshot below you can see the setup for the HDRI (also Poly Haven…) and on the right the setup for the sunlamp.
When everything was ready, I was missing “life in the place”… and that’s when I had the idea to liven up the next room - and it has become the bedroom :).
Into which I draped a model of DAZ Studio… (Marion HD for Genesis 8.1, for the nerds among you… 
)
Big shoutout to these artists:
@JamesRay aka James Ray Cock (Grandfather Clock, Tea Set, Picture)
Fran Calvente (Sofa) (https://www.artstation.com/francalvente)
Fernando Quinn (Coffee Table) (https://www.artstation.com/nquinn)
Rico Cilliers (Tea Set, Horse Statue, Pictures, Cabinet) (https://www.artstation.com/ricocilliers)
Kirill Sannikov (Gothic Bed, Classic Console, Chandelier) (https://www.artstation.com/k_sannikov)
Kuutti Siitonen (Jug) (https://www.artstation.com/kuuttisiitonen)
Jurita Burger (Tea Set)
Textures:
Wall: https://www.textures.com/download/PBR0088/133122
Floor: https://ambientcg.com/view?id=WoodFloor042
Carpet: https://www.textures.com/download/PersianCarpets0012/21993
Aditional ($) models are from:
