Not sure how to make this city look.

[LRH]

Hello all. I've started work on some background for a new project, but I've run into a bit of a wall.

Here's an (almost) complete background to give you an idea of the style I'm going for:




Here's the image I'm working on:


I can't quite figure out what I want to do with that back wall. It's supposed to be a gigantic window. The setting is a room in a building high above the city. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. I'm just not sure I like how it looks right now.

[Anian]

Is it supposed to be a night scene? In any case, in both rooms you're missing some sources of light.
That's supposed to be like a reception desk to an office or such? Then maybe plants in the corner and that's that, maybe a name of the company on the right wall that's lit from the bottom, a security camera in one of the corners near the window.

Also check the ratios of furniture a bit in the first background and ratio between the enterance and the desk in the second background..

[LRH]

Is it supposed to be a night scene? In any case, in both rooms you're missing some sources of light.
That's supposed to be like a reception desk to an office or such? Then maybe plants in the corner and that's that, maybe a name of the company on the right wall that's lit from the bottom, a security camera in one of the corners near the window.

Also check the ratios of furniture a bit in the first background and ratio between the enterance and the desk in the second background..

Not night, just really cloudy. The first is a picture of a home office (just there for reference purposes) and the second one is a private office in the city. I'm really just concerned with rendering the city outside the window for now. I should have left the "desk" out of the second one. It's just something I screwed around with.

[NickyNyce]

If you're in a building high above the rest of the city, I would start out by lowering the buildings outside. At the moment it doesn't look like you're as high as you mentioned. The door is too high like anian mentioned, it looks really big compared to the desk. Make some windows for the buildings too to give the picture more depth. Maybe you could add some molding to the door.

I also think the glare on the window is a bit much, especially if it's cloudy.

With that nice large window to work with, I think some added detail to the focus point of the BG is in order

Just some thoughts

[Snarky]

I'd take off those reflections for now, just focus on the cityscape. (There's also the question of what light they're actually reflecting.)

Basic fixes:

Not loving the colors. If you're not going to add a lot of detail to make the building material apparent, I'd go with something more typical (steel/glass or brick).

The top of the building on the right aligns perfectly with the frame of the window, which is weird. Similarly, the height of the left building is too close to the horizon level; make it either taller or (preferably) lower so that the perspective becomes clearer.

Is that thing in the middle one building or two? In any case, I'd move it/them off-center.

More generally, I think you should try to create more depth; not have three buildings at the same distance take up all the view, but either stagger them or space them out more and add another layer of buildings behind them.

Finally, the room seems very small for an office with floor-to-ceiling windows and a panorama view of the city.

[LRH]

Snarky, Anian, Nicky,

Thank you all for the suggestions. I will put them to work tonight and see what I come up with before I re-post.

[LRH]

Here's a little update:



I'm starting to figure out what to do with everything. I decided to greatly lower the building's height. Still needs a lot of work, though.

[Dualnames]

A vast improvement, I thought the first one was a server or something behind some glass. This clearly points out stuff.

[Anian]

Just maybe watch for example that light in the window, you don't want to draw the focal point away, maybe add a few more lighted windows, remove the shadow etc. But yeah, the back of the background looks very nice now

Also the chair is too wide and thus it looks very distorted and the bottom is too close to the camera so it doesn't seem like it's in the middle of the table.

[LetterAfterZ]

I'd also suggest spacing out the desk, chair a bit from each other and the wall.

At the moment it looks like it'd be nearly impossible to use that actual workspace.

I'd also suggest adding a base, some wheels, whatever to the chair to make it look a bit more natural. People don't tend to bolt their executive leather desk chair to the ground.

I'd also add that I'm still getting a night time vibe from this, and the light source is a bit confusing? It appears that the only light is coming from outside (based on the shadows) except there's no obvious outside light source and the left wall of the room seems to be ignoring this same light source (i.e. it should be darker too)