Another interior trying to achieve photo-realism

[DIO]

I have been working on this scene for a while now.
The rendering is just a corner of an complete apartement which goal it is
to shade and try out all kinds of furniture.
I specially tried to reach more realistic look by imperfections in the windows, floors, radiators and so on.
The only thing I´m still not really happy about are the plants. I think the shaders work fine, but I just
can´t find real good looking potted plants. I tried a lot of them, but it always looks somewhat odd and unnatural.

The room with windows, walls and the floor is modeled. The radiators are taken from an evermotion scene. I just changed the model a bit and made a control knob.
Furniture and plants are bought. Shading and textures by me.

Anyway, can´t look at this picture anymore, so here is my final result
Still happy to get feedback what looks most unrealistic.

[ROUBAL]

For me, everything is good. The plants as well. Nice textures. As a former technician, I always search to understand how things work or are made, and the only question that comes to my mind is about the armchair model : How is the seat attached to the support ? Maybe the weight of the seat would make the support penetrate a bit inside the seat bottom... Just a thought.

[Chris]

I agree with Roubal. A few more points:

- Leaves look a bit plastic, they need a more translucent quality.
- Floor material could also need some more work. Have you mapped the gloss channel? If you have, try adjusting the contrast a bit, the glossy finish is to smooth.
- The metal material on the chair could use some micro scratches, just something to break up the smoothness. Nothing in our world is perfect, even in mint condition
- The gaps between the floorboards are to wide in my opinion.

Cheers

[glimpse]

hi, DIO,

Nice work.

as for plants You can try these =)
http://archicg.name/models/BFIV1.php

As for c&c, personally I think lighting could be a bit more dynamic
(but that's purelly subjective as You might be working to get this exact effect).

[DIO]

Thanks your your comments

You are absolutely right about the chair. I didn´t think of that
... an neither did design connected
Mhhh ... I would like to model some kind of holding to the metal of the chair and just make
a region render of it ... wait, won´t work. I still don´t get, why region render is still not implemented,
but thats another topic.

I really worked on the floor, which is supposed to be a old wooden board floor. I have a lot of reference
material. The glossy is mapped and I tweaked it a lot. It look strange when the floor was more glossy, more
like it would be wet. This would look good on a more modern floor material but on those old boards I tried
to make it look, like the last wax, that was put on almost dried completely. Thats why I chose the glossy to be more smooth. Take a look at the reflection of the lamp on the right. I think it is perfect for the kind of wood material I tried to create. In my opinion more gloss just looks too polished and wet for this kind of old wood texture.

The plants have a sss shader. I think the "problem" is, that there is noch light behind the plants. It looks completely different when you put the plants between the camera and the windows. I looked at the plants we have here at the office and there is almost none SSS visible when they are standing in front of a white wall.
And in fact some of them look like plastic
When you make the SSS effect stronger it looks more like basil, which has much thinner leaves than the plants I tried to imitate.

The metal of the chair has scratches. But they are very subtle, you can only see them if you soom in on the 4k resolution. I had them stronger in the beginning, but this too didn´t look right. The metal seemed too used and old. Chromed steel doesn´t really get really used or old in my opinion. The scratches are there, but they are too thin to see at this distance in a 2k picture.

Don´t get me wrong. I unterstand your points completely and I´m glad for the feedback. It is just, that I changed this points over and over again because I wasn´t sure specially, after everyone here at the office said something different.
Like for example, the plants look too much like basil or the floor seems to be wet

I think you´re right about the gaps between the boards though. May be to extreme.

[DIO]

hi, DIO,

Nice work.

as for plants You can try these =)
http://archicg.name/models/BFIV1.php

As for c&c, personally I think lighting could be a bit more dynamic
(but that's purelly subjective as You might be working to get this exact effect).

Thanks, the plants look great, but also they have a problem.
Do you have this kind of plants at home or in your office?
They still look too game-like and stylized. They just don´t look like the usual unperfect
potted plants standing everywhere
They attract too much attention in my opinion.

[riggles]

I really like the attention to detail, especially in the wall/trim painted surfaces. Also, nice gaps in the wall construction. The floor looks really good, but there's something missing, I wish I could put my finder in it. But it's still good.

There's two things I think would increase realism in the scene. One is using a different chair. Eek, after all that texturing work. But it looks like some futuristic chair design that Evermotion came up with, but you would never see in real life. Also, I think it helps realism when it feels like there's a world outside the frame. If you got rid of the foreground plant and added more things to middle and background it would help. Some things that are only partially shown and others that are only suggested. Like a the corner of a floor rug, which would typically be on a floor like this in a room like this. And maybe the occlusion/shadow of a nearby coffee table that's just outside the frame. Maybe more things on the wall, or a TV stand or furniture along the back wall, or electrical chords or something. Basically, anything that makes the scene feel not staged and arranged, more like you walked into someone's loft and took a picture.

[DIO]

I really like the attention to detail, especially in the wall/trim painted surfaces. Also, nice gaps in the wall construction. The floor looks really good, but there's something missing, I wish I could put my finder in it. But it's still good.

There's two things I think would increase realism in the scene. One is using a different chair. Eek, after all that texturing work. But it looks like some futuristic chair design that Evermotion came up with, but you would never see in real life. Also, I think it helps realism when it feels like there's a world outside the frame. If you got rid of the foreground plant and added more things to middle and background it would help. Some things that are only partially shown and others that are only suggested. Like a the corner of a floor rug, which would typically be on a floor like this in a room like this. And maybe the occlusion/shadow of a nearby coffee table that's just outside the frame. Maybe more things on the wall, or a TV stand or furniture along the back wall, or electrical chords or something. Basically, anything that makes the scene feel not staged and arranged, more like you walked into someone's loft and took a picture.

Thank. You´re right about the arrangement of the scene. Could be better and not too staged as it is now.
As for the chair, I know what you mean. I just liked the design, but it may be not the best
choice for this environment.
I´ll make an update as soon as I´ll have the time. I´ll try to use another chair and rearrange the scene
I´ll change the gaps between the boards and the shader of the plants.

As for the glossy behavior of the floor: I visited a friend living in a old house last weekend. There is a similar
wooden floor in the stairway. Unfortunately I didn´t have my camera with me, but believe me, the floor looked almost exactly as my creation ... Ok, the texture was better

[Heelie]

Looks good to me.

However i doubt u will find highly realistic plant models where every single leaf has a slightly different look. At least ive never seen this and i dont think that is nessesary. If u want to achieve a very realistic look u shud focus more on lighting. Try to make it more dynamic. Look on real photographs and try to emulate that. The lighting in your render is too even, too perfect. Of course no GI Render Engine can emulate the complexity of real light bouncing around (yet). So grab a reference image and then just play around in post. It's about subtleties.

I dont think pushing glossieness values around will get u to more realism. As long as it looks believeable there is hardly a right or wrong. Ive seen laquered old wood that had a almost perfect glossieness.

So in my opinion its mainly lighting u shud focus on. But well this looks already realistic like i said. Maybe the last 5-10% are missing. Like we all know those are the hardest.