Please critique my first blender render...

When trying to make realistic CG wood, you have two options basically:
1: Dry, imperfect, at least a bit of dirt
2: Varnished, glossy, almost perfect, dark joins (not dirt, just where the varnish/oil would have seeped in, which happens to be similar to where dirt would accumulate)

Since this is a bathroom, I wouldn’t want to get splinters every time I got out the shower with my bare feet, so option 2 would be my choice.

So the latest image is definitely more believable, but it’s still missing those glossy reflections.

On a technical note, the reflection of those lamps look pretty dark, I’d assume they’re be pure white (brighter actually)

And no, a point lamp doesn’t have any reflection since it’s not actually a physical object but an imaginary light source. Use mesh lights instead, they might even render quicker.

Soften the edge where your toilet intersects with the floor. In a real home there would be a bead of caulk around the toilet, but you could just add a few edge loops around the base of the toilet and give it a bit of a lip outward. Are your lights actually lighting the scene or do you have lamps doing that. I only can make out 2 light sources. If the lights are positioned like they are in the picture, there would be like 6 or 8 in the room. There should be 6 or 8 real light sources. I believe you said you are using cycles and cycles is super easy if you forget all the faking stuff you had to do in blender internal. Just build a scene at accurate to real as you can and let cycles do the heavy lifting. Make 6 or so lights and set them to a material of emission. Allow that to light the scene and only that.

Maybe add some refraction to your glass. Glass has an IOR of 1.1

gregzaal, thanks for the advice, I appreciate it!

Thx BrentNewton, yes, I should probably switch the lights back to emission. You’re right about the toilet base.
Thanks for taking the time to critique :slight_smile: