Hi, I’ve been using blender off and on for about a year now and my scenes always seem to be missing something. I feel like more dramatic lighting or small details would help add to the realism of the scene, but I don’t know how I would go about editing lighting or adding things dust, outlets, and other things that are only noticed when they are missing. What are some methods that you use and recommend to add this extra level of realism?
Here is a scene that I’ve gone back and added to a couple of times over a few months and I still feel like it needs something:
what you need: Softer Shadows, Focused Lighting (your lighting looks too scattered and intense as if on the roof of a building)
What I suggest is modeling a window into a wall in the scene (Put the room into a room) what is currently lighting the scene? You need a sun light shining through a modeled window. Add a sun and rotate it so the beam is shooting into the window on an angle almost 90 degrees (75-85 degrees) angle on either the x axis or the y axis, Make sure the Beam is shooting into the window on an angle slightly down and angled. Set the size to 10cm-15cm for softer shadows. Set Strength to 4-5
For quick fill lights leave the back of the room open so the sun light can travel into other parts of the scene.
maraCZ is right…everything in your scene is too sharp. Bevel everything. The floor could use some texture and reflections…it looks like a white diffuse shader. The light is too bright, making the white surfaces hard to look at, and the shadows are too sharp. Add glass to the pictures to get some nice reflections, and have something contextual behind the camera to reflect. I think I see a cloud reflection on one of the drawer handles, but that wouldn’t make sense inside a house. I would also add some battle damage, i.e. scrapes, grunge, dust, etc. You have a good start…now just the small tweaks will take it to the next level.
The first thing my eye hits is the center partition of the desk thing. My eye rests there until boredom - My eye then travels to the center picture because of the color, then the left picture, then the center picture again, then the right picture. Then I go into the details like the books etc. Is this the scanning pattern you wanted? I would shift the camera up and away slightly until the bright color picture pulls the eye sooner. Also I would put the bright picture on the left so that the books would be balanced, and the pictures would read left to right then the jump to the books would flow more naturally. Finally I would put something written on the binding of the book as a reward for looking at the picture that long. My art teacher frequently said that art should capture, direct, and reward the viewer’s attention.
HTH - Jerry
@janetfdoss: Please, stop putting your own links into quotes of other people! There is a place for your links in your signature, if you want to promote yourself.