Hi all!
This my first larger scene that I have created in Blender. It’s meant to have “film noir”-feeling, depicting a some-what shady alley in some larger 1930’s-40’s american city. While I am fairly pleased with the details of the model elements, I feel that the scene is to “orderly” and obviously CGI looking. Tips and tricks regarding lighting and shading in order to further add realism would be greatly appreciated! 
Hi,
from my point of view, most obviously fake are the windows, as they are completely flat and there is nothing behind them.
I guess you are trying to save on rendertime by making them just an emission planes, but if you are going for realism it is not gonna be enough.
Some grunge or dirt for the hotel sign would also surely help.
I am not sure what the black sqare beneath the sign is supposed to be… A door woud probably be more extruded to the indise and have some kind od handle there… Or is it something else?
And while the bricks are not terrible and I like how you kind of solved to corner there, you could surely improve on them as well… make them more than just texture, try to make some stick out a little more then others, make one missing. this small details can make a scene go a long way.
And while I am being completely honest, I kind of hate that “drunk photographer” camera angle. Sorry… 
It just feels gratuitous.
Hi,
Thank you so much for your criticque!
Yes, the windows are just emittors at this point since they are seperate objects that are mirrored and array modified over the main building. Would a boolean modifier on the windows make them be able "cut " through the main building so that I can model rooms on the inside? The black sqaure is supposed to be a door, and yes it can be greatly improved!
The bricks are at the moment a diffuse textrure, normal texture, diffuse and glossy shader, but I guess I can improve them with a displacement texture. I wall also try to edit the textures themselves more.
Finally, the “drunk photographer look” was heavily inspired from the “Fan4tastic” movie poster, but it seems that it got a little out of hand! I’ve only shown this to some friends that are not at all into graphics, so it’s really nice to have it evaluated by a pro!
Heh, I wouldn’t call myself a pro 
so please take all my advices for what they are - only my opinions
boolean would be able to do what you want, but I would not really recommend it, as it can screw up the geometry and cause problems or some artifacts later. Once you are happy with the position of the windows you shlould be able (if you are not in much of a hurry) to manualy make loop cuts where the windows are and extrude those faces, then delete them.
Being able to see at least the inner parts of the windows (behind the glass) will help very much to boost realism I think, but mind you, once you put a glass in there and some light or other objects inside the rooms, your render times will rise dramaticaly I’m afraid. So plan according to your PC performance as well. You can of course battle this a little by making the glass setup not to calculate glass shadow as it will not be necessary for you, not all the rooms need to be lit or have their own lamp, limiting the number of light bounces etc. You can surely come up with some compromise that will look great.
About the bricks - they are really not that bad, maybe it will be enough, once the rest is done. I am not sure if a displacement texture (talking about actual physical displacement by a modifier) would be optimal as you would have to subdivide the plane so much that it might be actually better for rendering to handmodel one and array.
Last thing to the very tilted camera - some people like it (i know they do), it’s just that I dont - or at least not without reason. In the fan4tastic poster it makes at least some kind of sense as it is supposed to convey some emotion, feeling of destruction a chaos as the city behind them is being ripped to shreds. Yours image is more or less calm at the moment (or is there going to be a murderer behind one of the windows? ) And while there is some suspense implied basicaly by the genre itself to me it does not justify that much of a tilt… But then again, others may like it.
Anyway, keep at it and share when you have something new. Might be a very cool image in the end.
