Lots of work, but lacking in quality. What will help?
It’s not lacking much in IMO - very nice work on the modeling and texturing, I think it’s just lighting/compositional stuff that could move it up a notch.
I would suggest opening up the shadows on the grass a bit and changing the time of day. The lighting at midday looks very flat and unflattering for most things. I might try moving the white car too. Not sure where, could just need to tone down a bit (drawing the eye quite a bit right now). I might also shift the second car from the right so it’s not tangent to the last car, or so that it is more so but where it is has an odd tension.
Just my .02
b
Post
Thanks. I put the white car for some contrast since that area is the main entrance. I tried the sun 45 degrees from the camera, but moved. I’ll play with that.
Headlights on right most car are blown out and take away from the image a bit. I think the most outstanding issue is the roof lacks definition - it’s hard to tell what’s in shadow and what’s not, needs more shading or something.
too much contrast imo, id raise the gamma a bit and compensate with the camera settings. (just a little)
The shadows are vary dark too.
Ok, the cars aren’t problem here. In fact I think the cars are fine other than the blown-out headlights.
The problem is just overall composition of the rendering. First, the cropping of your view needs to change. The subject of your rendering is the building, but it occupies such a narrow strip of the total render. There’s way to much sky and grass.
So, here’s how you fix it. Recrop the image like the attachment I’m showing and there will be much more emphasis on the building. Notice that this crops out the shadows on the grass. This actually is a nice feature, so I’ve painted in an example of where the shadows should be in the recropped version.
Also, you should add some foreground framing vegetation on the edges of the image like I’ve painted in green. This will give the visual clue as to where the shadows are coming from, even if it doesn’t match the shadows. It will give the feel of looking through trees and give a sense of depth of a world existing to the sides and behind the camera.
Third, the trees up against the building look weak and just planted. Get something bigger in there, even if it takes some photoshop work to do it. Your background trees are much better.
I tend to agree with Dynedain.
Your houses are in the midddle and composition looks “undecided” between grass and sky. Try cutting halfway through either sky or grass (you decide what is more inportant)
Rendering itself looks good
zoran
Yep - needs a lift in the shadows, there’s no detail under the eaves of the roof and that’d never happen in real life - bit more gi bouncing or lwf methinks.
Either do some heavy painting/photoshop cutout work in the foreground, or try to add some 3d to it, or just crop it.
It’s a rather simple problem that’s not necessarily 3d related. You have an image, an illustration, and a specific composition. The subject of your illustration is in the background, while you are showing a rather uniform and boring element in the foreground and midground.
You have somewhat solved the foreground with the shadow, but it’s still a large portion of the image that is very uniform.
Think along the line of kids playing soccer on the lawn somewhere in the line with that flock of birds.
The only problem with this is that it would probably take as much time to set up as it did to model the complex 
But then again, if you were painting with watercolors, you would surely splash something in there to simulate something like this. Soccer, flowers, shadows, kids flying kites and stuff…
my 37 cents.
Black Duck
I wasn’t really talking about composition I guess. I usually use the 1/3 - 2/3 rule, but that is done in post. I sent this one to render and I’ll post it later today. Everything everyone mentioned I think I have already addressed. Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.
Here is the final. The architecture is boring, but I tried to create some interest.
Reflection
Several time I have heard I should add a Fresnel reflection to everything. Can someone elaborate?
I think it’s better overall, although maybe a touch moody fpr a seniors home A little more brightness in the area of the building might help.
Nice job.
b
Ugh! the color adjustments make it so dark and foreboding! Especially for a retirement home. Go back to the original colors and saturation.
Colors
Hmmm… these are they colors the picked. Or are you talking about the mood?
The mood, the sky is more gray than before, the grass darker and with solid shadows. It makes it look like a rainy winter day, whereas the first one looked like a sunny day that had a quick shower.
My suggestion is:
-go back to the original render, its nice lit and comped, cars are fine!
Maby take down the blownout carlights slightly..
-try to fix the textures on the roof to more real using some dirt or real phototextures,
Its too regular right now and computerich, saturation could have some randomness.
-same with the bricks/wood/greenmetal.
-blur the shadows comming from the roof with arealights.
Done!
//
I’ve struggled with similar jobs in the past and my first reaction is that the camera is too far away. I know there isnt much to see in terms of the Architecture so you may be looking to add a few distractions in there such as some high quality foregroud trees that break things up a bit without blocking out the buildings
The other thing that I would personally change is to reduce the saturation on the green on the windows/roof. Try to find some actual photo examples of what this colour should look like - it currently looks a bit artificial even though the saturation ties in the background/foreground. Maybe brighten the whole thing up a bit like others have suggested?. Also maybe needs an army of old people walking around to help take the focus off the boring buildings.
I’ve worked on a few retirement homes as well and its just funny when you see them being designed with lower ceilings and roof pitches - trying to keep cost at a minimum and hoping that nobody will notice that they are being forced to settle for something that was cheaper to build than the cheapest possible residence. I
I think you have done a good job with what you have though - I just cant see this job looking good from this camera angle and its a problem when clients want to capture the whole thing sometimes
Old Folks
Thanks for the word of encouragement. I am redoing this tonight and I’ll repost tomorrow.