PR Exteriors are not common - some look quite good at close range (foyers and glass) but at full distance then most if not all Exterior images ive seen look NPR no matter what Rendering engine, some composites look quite good though.. try cgarchitect for more info about archvis
It looks as though you are using pure white lights. Try not to. Give your main light a very slight yellowish tinge, and for your sky fill lights (or environmental slot if you are using global illumination), a slight blue cast.
Also for most outdoor shots colour tends to be a lot less saturated. If I am using just direct lighting I will add a slight grey/pale blue fog to simulate arial perspective. If you are using global illumination you may not want to do it this way as fog can act as a light source for GI, instead if you are using GI you can fix the saturation levels in photoshop (possibly with a Z-mask if you are fealing brave )
I think it looks model like because you dont have any background reference so you can tell the story of this building being collosal. Also i got the feeeling it looks kinda small because of that dof in third image. Checkout the post by dimskapunk - spacestation, you can best see what impression does dof leave in an image.
Also try moving the sun a bit, dont know if others will agree on this, but i always avoid placing the viewer in the same direction as the sun. And also try lowering it a bit, if you’re using a sunlight sistem try 10am or 16pm or so.
Also try slightly bluish / white enviroment sky, with about 0.6-08. multiplier, and a yellowish/orange sun wih around 0.6-0.7 multilplier or something like that…
Please work on this, the model looks great!
Im no pro either but there are a couple things to do.
Keep the depth of field very open and have very little go off into complete blurryness.
Desaturate some colors using depth. In photoshop, have your z-depth information, lay it on top of all your layers, and changes its layer information to Saturate, and moslt likely lower the opacity of it.
The camera angle ifs most likely the hardest to make. Heck, if you have the scene to scale, why dotn you model a quick tripod, and put it into the scene, make yourself a camera and poof, you have limiting factors to help guide you.
I would reduce the scale of textures also, and try to change the colors, 'cause it’s very difficult to see an yellow or blue like these in architeture, specially in metal elements. what’s the material of the floor, concrete? If so, it has to have some tiling in order to prevent from crackness when expanding and contracting due to heat and cold.
And also IMO the light should have more bounces, appears to be too dark in the image from ground view.
There are lots of things making that building look like a toy. You just missed one layer of human scale detail. Huge building structures rarely intersect like small solid forms. There is detail in areas of intersection. Same with atticas or intersections of walls and floors. Diameter size of the ladder tubes is too big. Windows are placed in a random manner without any storey reference. The big tubes on the ground level are mounted like very small ones. If they are big, they are really heavy so you don’t have to prevent them from flying away! Surfaces are rarely exact over large distances. and so on - and so on …
i will fix the problem with the storeys and the ladder first.
the two storeys i have are 2.5m high and the windows ~ 1m above the floor, but you are right the placement makes not much sense. the building should have 3 storeys not only 2. there is to much empty room in the middle of the building. i tought about it as maschinery room, needs no window, but it looks strange.
the windows are to big for the building too, i will change that.