One of my current works in progress.
Not happy with the right hand side of the image yet
Let me know any suggestions!
Not happy with the right hand side of the image yet
Let me know any suggestions!
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(To me) scale is the what stands out the most. The paving stones and bricks should be at least 2/3 of their current scale and then the proportions of the scene will be more believable. The joint’s between the bricks should only be 10mm but these look nearer 20/30mm. The bump is also quite excessive but might not look as bad once scaled down. The orientation of the timber to the gate and fence is unusual (its almost always vertical in my part of the world) but that doesn’t mean its wrong.
Some extra modelled detail wouldn’t go amiss either:
- wall brackets to the rainwater downpipe
- Support brackets to the gutter at the fascia
- Hinges to the gate
- Joints to the changes of direction at the downpipe
- Lose the stone where the downpipe intersects the path (it would be extremely unlikely to be like that in the real world)
- The gate/side fence panel should be the same height as the boundary fence.
Those are the things I would do but I notice these things due to my job.
I do like the scene, the mats and lighting look nice so I look forward to seeing up future updates 
Thanks so much for the feedback. Taking your suggestions it’s definitely looking better.
Still some things I’d like to tweak. Just noticed after rendering that that gate will definitely not open. Not sure I like the leaves material either.
Hey, yeah it’s definitely looking better. I’ve got some other comments which you may want consider (or ignore entirely lol!). I’m from the UK so you’ll have to excuse if my experience is not relevant to wherever you live, it’s just for use as a guideline to help bring realism to your scene.
Bricks:
The top of wall openings are typically at 2.1m above finished floor level which in turn is approx 150mm above finished ground level (Therefore 2250mm total). 1 masonry course consists of 1 brick and 1 mortar joint totalling 75mm. If you do the basic maths that would be 30 courses to the top of your louvred opening, your image has 14 hence why the bricks seem massive (to me at least). Of course if your opening is meant to be lower, you can roughly estimate how many courses you should need to get the realistic scale of the material.
Gate
The top header of your gate seems to have increased since the previous image for some reason.
The ironmongery (Hinges/Knob/Lock etc…) isn’t what I would expect on a garden gate, likewise the overall style is quite unusual (seems like an expensive looking style). Fences and timber garden gates have vertical boards (better for security than horizontal). This is an example of a really basic gate:
This is a more expensive option(better quality timber & hardware):
Rainwater Drainage:
Maybe add some bevels to the main gutter, it’s quite sharp edged and doesn’t look like any profile’s I’ve seen used on houses which are like these: 
Eaves Fascia:
Currently your soffit boards run to the edge but there is no fascia board which would project slightly below the soffit. I think adding that will help the image a bit more:
Leaves:
I don’t mind the material, its got a funky SSS effect going on that works with the lighting and god rays. Maybe just run some tests with different diffuse values till you find what you think suits the scene the best.
Plant Pot:
If that gate is opening, it would likely hit the plant pot, maybe a better composition is to bring it forward between the louvre panel and downpipe.
Wow, thanks again for the great feedback. I thought I’d be able to eyeball the correct dimensions but clearly not!
Regarding the gate, from googling I’ve found many examples of gates where the planks are aligned horizontally, and I like the look so I think I’ll stick with it. However I agree the ironmongery needs work. (Currently too dark to be visible in the image). I’ve played with the design but I’m not happy with how it’s turned out.
As for the gutter, your advice was spot on, looks a lot more believable. I think I can do more with the soffit (I think that’s the bit I’m referring to)
Also I need to add some more detail to the plant pot now that it’s in the foreground. (Great suggestion again)
Again, thanks for taking the time, I really appreciate it.
Nice work, thats looking really good now. Its come long way with just a few simple changes and the entire side of the house looks great and totally believable.
Without knowing your where you are looking to take the scene, there not much more to suggest, other than maybe:
- Scale down the paving stones a little from 9 courses wide to maybe 11 or 12?
- Try and remove the hard edge to the left of the path.
- There’s some odd artifacts between the slats of the fence & gate. It’s probably a render setting but I don’t have much experience with Cycles yet to advise how to solve that (perhaps you already know yourself?)
This is what I’ve ended up with. Redid the leaves as a particle system with an actual mesh .Added dirt and minor details to the meshes.
Just about sick of working on this scene. So long to render! Still not fully happy with it. Maybe because I’ve been staring at it for so long.
Let me know what you think
Huge improvement on the first post. Great feedback and great response to it! The thing that really jumps out at me is the grass. It’s quite tidy and uniform giving it an artificial look.
Nice work, looks very very good!
Made some big changes this time. After leaving this for a while and coming back to it I realised that the lighting was a bit boring. Specifically the fact that most of the image is in shadow.
Now there’s more visual interest and emphasis on the foreground elements. However in changing that I’ve had to ditch the evening lighting, but I think overall it’s a change for the better.
I also redid the leaves material to give a more realistic look, changed the fittings on the gate(Still very hard to see), and added some variation in the grass scale to give a more natural look.