First Render/Project Ever - New to the 3D World

Archieonic

Hello there! Complete newbie here, started self-learning 3D via Blender and tutorials 3 and a half weeks ago. I have since bought a few courses but decided to finish this project that took me 2 and a half weeks.

This is a render of my full-time job office. The main challenge for me was that we are not allowed to have any electronics inside the area for security reasons, so half of the stuff I had to sketch (and well, let's just say I've never really drawn much at all). The mouse, keyboard, chair and headset I modeled off reference photos online. The rest was badly drawn sketches with a lot of writing to remember colors, angles and height.

I learned so much from doing this project. By far the most challenging thing to model was the desk chair taking me a full 3 days to finish. I'm still not happy with it fully by the way. The mesh part of it is not accurate to my real desk chair. But well, I couldn't keep re-doing things.

I also love gaming, have been gaming since I was 3 on them old Atari consoles. Producing content for gaming purposes is definitely something I want to focus on later on. I decided to attempt a kind of photo realistic project first to challenge myself in the modeling department and having to model every single detail.

It was super fun to do, and to see a blank scene with a cube turn into this is very rewarding. It definitely kicked my modeling skills into high gear doing everything from scratch. I still need to practice texture and details a lot. Being my first render there's a bunch of things I could have probably done better or might need fixing, and that's what I'm wanting to hear from more experienced folks.

First draft

First render

Second render test

Almost done...

Final Render!

Thanks in advance!

AndresZambrano

For a first render that's really good. Your models are nice and clean, I would say to look into using roughness maps for adding subtle imperfections and realism to your surfaces. You are also using very smooth lighting for a scene that would have artificial lights which would cast much more sharp and defined shadows. Soft lighting like this is good for beautifying characters because it makes them look youthful but for this type of environment it flattens the image quite a bit.

Archieonic

AndresZambrano said:

For a first render that's really good. Your models are nice and clean, I would say to look into using roughness maps for adding subtle imperfections and realism to your surfaces. You are also using very smooth lighting for a scene that would have artificial lights which would cast much more sharp and defined shadows. Soft lighting like this is good for beautifying characters because it makes them look youthful but for this type of environment it flattens the image quite a bit.

Thank you for the suggestions. I really have to study more on surface imperfections. 

The lightning I tried to replicate the position IRL, but you are right and I completely missed that all the shadows are very soft without a single sharp one. I'll have to toy around with them.

Thanks again!

Ashervisalis

I would move the paper that is pinned to the wall on each desk. Rotate them a little, adjust their position a little, just to reduce the repetition in the scene. Maybe stick a post it note on one so you can tell the person who sits there just doesn't care about whatever it is that is pinned to the wall.

Archieonic

Ashervisalis said:

I would move the paper that is pinned to the wall on each desk. Rotate them a little, adjust their position a little, just to reduce the repetition in the scene. Maybe stick a post it note on one so you can tell the person who sits there just doesn't care about whatever it is that is pinned to the wall.

Thanks for the suggestion! That analogy actually fits very well too to my RL office lol.