Opinions on some 3D?

[MUFFINinc]

Hi.  I'm currently working on game called Ravensbrook.  It is a first person horror adventure in the style of The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour.  These are a few test renders I did of some of the environments, and I was just wondering what people thought.  I used Bryce for this, although I should say that the occasional odd piece of furniture is from a free model library. 

[imgzoom]http://therealmuffin.net/images/ravensbrook/sample1.png[/imgzoom]

[imgzoom]http://therealmuffin.net/images/ravensbrook/sample2.png[/imgzoom]

[imgzoom]http://therealmuffin.net/images/ravensbrook/sample3.png[/imgzoom]

[imgzoom]http://therealmuffin.net/images/ravensbrook/sample4.png[/imgzoom]

[imgzoom]http://therealmuffin.net/images/ravensbrook/sample5.png[/imgzoom]

[Armageddon]

You've got to turn the grain down or render with something like Marmoset.

[Eric]

I know nothing of grain, so I'll talk about composition and lighting. I really like images 2, 4 and 5, and hope that you'll be able to use the LightLevel (someone will correct me if I'm wrong on this) so the character will match the lighting dynamics of the rooms.

Image 1 pales compared to the others because the lighting is all the same. I think if you strengthened the light source to provide some more contrast, this one would look better. The hard edge of the triangular light ray of image 3 bothers me. That's the only thing. I love the set up and composition of this room, especially that icebox.

As always, my comments come with the caveat that you do this much better than I would ever be able to.

[Anian]

Models look nice, textures are a bit plain and plastic, but that's the renderer problem.
Use another renderer, this one makes material look the same AND it calculates shadows just plain wrong. For example in the last picture the table on the left, light comes from the lamp yet the shelf beneath the table is lit as well and the beneath that the shadows is again the same intensity, the wall lights on the 2nd picture give off a weird shadow on the ceiling and the one on the table casts a wrong kind of reflection on the window (window texture needs fixing) etc.

[Theme]

Is this grain or a noise texture?
This looks like some old style 3d graphics, but you need some polish on the final render, like the shadows are too sharp.
The model are very nice!

[MUFFINinc]

Thank you all for the comments.  I am particularly glad to hear that someone like my icebox, as I am especially proud of that icebox. 

Lighting is probably the thing I have the most trouble with, so I will take these comments into consideration and see what I can do.  I have no idea where that triangular light in 3 is coming from.  That also bothered me, so I will definitely have to look into it now.  I am not overly concerned with how the rendering itself looks right now, since these are still works in progress and since the resolution will probably be reduced in AGS anyway, but I will still look into different renderers.  I did not notice the issue with the lighting in 5 but now that you have pointed it out I can't not see it, so I will see what I can do with all that.  I am actually fairly new to 3D, so I am not sure what is meant by grain.  The textures are mostly derived from photographs I found, so maybe I need to use images with higher resolution?

[Anian]

Unfortunately the only good way to detect light problems (or to set lights without trouble) is to put each light separately and render the scene (use just a small size render so it goes faster) after adding each one.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Generally the compositions are competent but pretty dry and empty;  aside from the sitting/living room area (and even that to a degree) the rooms feel unrealistically empty.  Another issue is that these look like you went a bit crazy with texturing EVERYTHING, and while some of it looks good some of it also looks out of place (like on some of the doors and the walls).  The models themselves look good, but when you're dealing with 3D you should be able to get much more exciting angles for the rooms just through experimentation.

[Miez]

Nice work!

I like your modeling, and your composition is good (maybe a little stiff - everything is laid out "showroom" neat).
What does bother me however, is that your shadows are so very sharp ... if your shadow edges were a lot softer, the scenes would have a more organic and natural look.