Question: how to make city renders look more realistic

UrbanPlanner

Hi guys, I'm an urban planning student. Most of my visuals are of exterior parts of the city (public squares, parks, streets etc) My goal is to make them as photo-realistic as possible. Would you mind to take a look at this latest render and suggest how I can improve on the realism  

Software: Sketchup
Render engine: Vray 3.4 & very light touches of Photoshop

Alemja

Is this real-time in an engine like Unreal or Unity or is this done through a render setup like V-Ray? I think you'll get more help if we know more about your setup because the answer is different for each one.

JamesBrisnehan

I don't know much about lighting but I see some textural things you could work on that might help.

One thing I notice is that your ground texture is very plain. The ground takes up a lot of visual space in this shot, so giving it the time and attention it deserves could go a long way. You could break it up with different textures and patterns. Lined concrete, brick, stone tile, and maybe even some light touches of dirt or weathering in some areas to give it a more lived in feel. However also try to avoid textures that look to repetitive from a distance.



The textures on the building and railing also look a little flat. If you add a little more texture break-up to your color and roughness/gloss maps they might look more realistic. There is no need to go full grunge or anything, but imperfection is natural. Right now your scene is too perfect, and that might be part of why it looks CG.



That's just my two cents worth.

I do like where you are headed with this scene. The staging and mood are very nice, and I can see the potential. Keep up the good work.

UrbanPlanner

Alemja said:

Is this real-time in an engine like Unreal or Unity or is this done through a render setup like V-Ray? I think you'll get more help if we know more about your setup because the answer is different for each one.

Thank you for that comment, I have edited the post so that you can see i have used Vray for the render and some verry light touches with Photoshop after.
Thank you JamesBrisnehan for your input as well! You are 100% correct. now that i look at it the ground does take up a maybe 50% of the picture. If i look even further, the 3 trees on the left are the same model and they look a bit repetitive, also i think the bark has too much reflective property to it, it 

UrbanPlanner

Alemja said:

Is this real-time in an engine like Unreal or Unity or is this done through a render setup like V-Ray? I think you'll get more help if we know more about your setup because the answer is different for each one.

Thank you for that comment, I have edited the post so that you can see i have used Vray for the render and some verry light touches with Photoshop after.
Thank you JamesBrisnehan for your input as well! You are 100% correct. now that i look at it the ground does take up a maybe 50% of the picture. If i look even further, the 3 trees on the left are the same model and they look a bit repetitive, also i think the bark has too much reflective property to it, it almost looks metallic. I will work on these changes and post an update. Thank you very much again!

UrbanPlanner

Alemja said:

Is this real-time in an engine like Unreal or Unity or is this done through a render setup like V-Ray? I think you'll get more help if we know more about your setup because the answer is different for each one.

Thank you for that comment, I have edited the post so that you can see i have used Vray for the render and some verry light touches with Photoshop after.
Thank you JamesBrisnehan for your input as well! You are 100% correct. now that i look at it the ground does take up a maybe 50% of the picture. If i look even further, the 3 trees on the left are the same model and they look a bit repetitive, also i think the bark has too much reflective property to it, it almost looks metallic. I will work on these changes and post an update. Thank you very much again!