hello. Some of the older blenderheads will recognize my handle, but I needed to blast the rust on my modelling skills. Here is the result. I start on texturing
critics Please ?
Really nice modeling and perspective, i miss
- more randomness on the grass/bushes (they look very arrayed)
- textures (only for completeness :evilgrin:)
- story/fat farmer/something in german is called a “driving moment” (don’t know if there is a translation)
and maybe the water fountain is to close to the door.
But: cool start!
“Old” farm you say. Why this farm looks brand new - not a scratch on er’. hahah
I would definitely model in some decay before starting on the texturing. Perhaps you were planning on aging it with texturing alone, but for realism sake I think the extra time to model some decay details would be well worth it.
I agree with SebastianBauer about finding a story element to help give the scene some meaning.
Also it looks like the left side of the house has been neglected. I would think that the bricks on the corner would wrap around, no?
And it appears the maid is very fastidious with curtain placement.
Good stuff though, hope to see it when it’s textured. 
Thanks for the answers.
Turquoiserabbit, i do indeed age the model via textures (grime maps) and displacement maps or even sculpt. But it is an old farm because the farming implements are 19th century, not because it is a ruin.
here is a version with about half the textures in, no grime map still.
It seems I did not lost too much of modelling skills during my almost 3 years pause, but I need to restudy seriously the textures procedurals. So much has changed in 2.50, and i forgot the rest. :eek:
Ah, that makes sense about it being an old farm now.
When it comes time it might be neat to do a version of a render with some grain and damage to the picture itself to make it look like an old photograph of a new farm (at the time the picture was taken). If you know what I mean.
An updated version. most textures are in but still lacking some grime maps.
comments and critics welcomed. Especially lighting and balance
Turquoiserabbit, grain and other artifacts always seems convoluted to me, I will probably not go there.
Put some dirty-the-light texture over the roof, and don’t make it blazing noonday-sun with the sun coming down directly behind the camera. No one takes pictures at “high noon.”
I’d be coming here early in the morning or probably late in the afternoon and I’d be planning to hide some fill-lights or at least big reflectors behind that hedgerow to avoid losing detail in the shadows that I would want to be there. I’ve still got a box of nice light-blue gels that are used to provide contrast to the usually warm, reddish light that fills the sky in “the magic hour.” (I’d be hiding a strobe behind the well, too, and pondering what to do about the farm implements.)
As you can see from the earth crackled texture and the burned grass, I aimed for a very specific atmosphere which is “drenched by the sun”. And this kind of setting is not done at dusk or dawn. I will add grime maps for washing most textures to add the sun bleaching. I agree that without those maps the setting is not natural though. It is slow because I dont have much time to work on that project.
I may try to orient sun more on the side.
On the other hand, magic hour settings are so overdone that when I was doing photography, i avoided them like the plague. Much more interesting are strong overcasts just before or after the rain, but those are very hard to do right in 3D, because much of the feeling there is due to polarized light.