I´m working on this scene with a forgotten toy laying on the floor. I imagine it´s midnight and a full moon shining through a roof top window.
Can I improve the image in some way or can I call it done? The feeling I want to communicate is loneliness.
I´ve used a spotlight for the moon light and also 4 area lights (also with a blue tint) covering the walls on each side and in the back and one from the roof, to lighten up the shadows a bit.
The feeling is there but it’s not too strong, probably because the scene is too pristine: there is no dust, no disorder, the floor looks brand new, nothing suggests what happened and why the toy was forgotten. (I would guess that a kid played with the toy before bedtime and will pick the toy up again in the morning.)
I don’t want to sound all negative; I actually think the cloth toy and the light are beautifully rendered.
I just think this piece lacks (subtle) detail even you’re going for simplicity…
Thank you for your input ToshiCG, I still consider myself a beginner and any input like yours make me learn to see the details that needs to be there.
I changed the scenery a bit, removed the furniture, moved the corner of the room closer, thinking more empty attic than living room. I tryed to make the flooring look more worn aswell. I´m not sure how to make the toy look more worn, so any suggestions on that would be appreciated. I tried to make it dusty but in this lighting, it doesn´t seem to show. I also added more dust particles flying around in the air (I think I have to rerender, because the added particles isn´t visible).
Cool! I think the empty attic direction is working out well.
What you could do is add thicker dust on the floor but leave certain places cleaner (where stuff - boxes or whatever - was placed for long time). Add some shoe prints to that and you can imagine how the toy fell off from one of the boxes as people were taking them out of the attic.
You could add dust this way
and you should be able to mask out the cleaner parts with a black-white map.
Maybe it´s the blue lighting that makes it so difficult for the dust to be visible. There should be footprints already and I also followed the tutorial you linked to but I don´t seem to be able to make it visible at all. Maybe I´m just not quite good enough to tweek the right settings.
Thanks anyway for your input ToshiCG, it was quite valuable to me.