[philipbruton]

Imo the image is far too clean, it makes it look far too uinrealistic as the world is a dirty, filthy place. The building could use some sky lights to project sun into the entrance.
Is there glass in those windows ?
You could build proper window fittings, frames and panes !
How aboput a parking meter or 10 ?
The grass is way too over saturated, maybe just have grass in the back ground and the view could be looking over a wall/bush ? using dof to blur foreground out.
how bout a tree, i like trees, they make the world look less concrete
Where is this btw ? Maybe a sign out the front, hospital/University/Supermarket !! Put things in appropriate to this envirment, Ambulance/student related stuff/shopping trolleys.
hope these pointers helped, just try and work more into your image, think real life !

[tom]

i'm the last one here to answer an archviz question but i think i can suggest something.
build your geometry as it's being build in real life.
i mean, don't make buildings uniform one mesh.
try seperating walls and structures, then apply the maps for each.
more things to say but it's better arch pros to speak now

[philipbruton]

Another major point is the cars, they are very blocky and sqaure, maybe have a multi storey car park and don't show any cars if you havn't got decent models or maybe place them such that they are out of the clear dof and therefore need not be accurate, and vary the colours more, i see too many that are exactly the same colour, makes it look fake. the angle of the image aswell, i would lower it. Also the pickup looks far too small.

[philipbruton]

Render the glass but don't use caustics, atleast you'll get a refelction and the light from the interior will show through. Maybe use the same brick texture taken into photoshop and converted to greyscale ( adjust contrast up ) and back to rgb as a bump map.

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[Mihai]

Well Wolfkiller how do you expect to see the mortar in the bricks from 100m away? I think your biggest problem is you over texturize everything, meaning usually you use small repeatable textures with lots of detail in them, but you expect them to look good when they are repeated 100x in width and 200x in length.

The bricks texture in this case is fine, what you need in this pic are more details, that's why it looks unfinished.

Instead of real glass for the windows, just use a plastic mat, with pretty dark color and not too much specular, maybe 40-70, to simulate reflective glass.

Or, if you really have modelled all the interior in the entrance, you still need some lights inside. But that will take time to place them properly and build realistic geometry. You're too much in a hurry and rely too much on textures

And that grass has to go....

The cars look very unrealistic both in modeling and materials, and scale (that jeep for example).

All the sidewalks are just a flat white color...

You need to pay attention to one detail at a time.

[big K]

as the others allready said: it's a matter of detail and the point of view.
a fotographer shooting fotos of architecture analyses the whole scene including structure of the building, the envirement and the sky (the play with light is very important !) - so relax sit back and ask yourselve what would be a nice place to shoot a picture of that building. If you have one, start adding details in your field of view.

another thing about the glass:
is it possible, that you have used a single surface as glass letting mw asume that the whole interior is glass (this could result in your strange black openings). you need two surfaces (volume) to have the light pass through.

and do not give up
it takes some practice

hope this helps
cheers
michael

[big K]

well, if you have a single surface in your window frames that has a glass material assigned, then yes make a face extrusion to get some volume and another surface pointing inside.
consider this: if the light passes only one surface then for maxwell everything beyond this surface would be considered as glass. until the light passes another surface pointing in the opposit direction.
for glass it is extremly important to think in volumes when working with maxwell.

[philipbruton]

yes wolfy, model things as the are in real life for accurate result with maxwell, as maxwell is simulating real world lighting and not faking lighting effects to get a desired result ! A window has multiple panes of "solid" glass, so create this as it is.

[Mihai]

just model the windows as very thin cubes (about 3mm). Face extrusion will not do since that will not give you a back face. If everything is already modelled try the Shell modifier in Max..

[x_site]

:: change the brick texture... i think it is a bit bland... also you need some vegetation to brake the 'hard landscape'...

Very few buidings would have brick allover their facade, add more details as mentioned b4... ::

[Mihai]

I am using these settings for the glass mesh. Is this sufficient for a good glass?

Does it produce solid geometry or does it produce just a one sided sheet? If it's one sided then it's wrong.

[deesee]

I think the easiest thing you can do (and its not necessarily a rendering issue) is change your viewing angle; exagerrate it a bit maybe. Your angle and viewing distance are so static right now. Your composition is key!!

As to materials, glass, etc the pros around us are more qualified than I to help you there.