Hello, I’m working on a farmstead scene (personal artwork) and would love some feedback on my models, textures, and composition. Here is the main element, the homestead house itself. Modeled in Rhino, rendered in mental ray for Maya:
Ink model in Rhino:
Progress update, blocking in the scene.
I made five new trees so far for this scene: birch, maple, oak, douglas fir, and poplar. Placement is purely conceptual here.
Looks cool. I think that chimney going through this wooden roof, should have something like hood around it’s base. Not just stick our directly from roof tiles.
Good call! I’l put in some kind of flange around the chimneys, for sure. Thanks for the feedback. 
I modeled a simple pig-pen, a windmill, and a corral structure as well.
And some material renderings, generally trying to keep my shader overhead pretty low for now:
Major update. Most elements are in place, lots of detailing and small-prop modeling to come still. Foreground is just a placeholder so far.
Raw render, no post or passes yet:
Latest update, nearly finished modeling/layout and texturing. Raw render, no postwork yet.
This looks great so far! One thing I was very curious about, did you model in the terrain and whatnot, is it a picture, or are you using something else?
My opinion also is that perhaps some volumetric lighting could push this scene further?
Yes, I modeled everything you see in this scene, except for a few small props like shovels, rakes, and a hoe. The landscape is simple poly sculpting, with an altitude and slope based shader for the base coloring. Plants are instanced from 3-5 variations, generally, though there’s a few higher-poly “hero” trees in there. Water sculpted in Mudbox so far, though I might try some light foam emission in Maya. Textures are photo-based throughout.
Here’s the Viewport of the landscape and structures in Maya, minus the plants & instancing. Just under 35 million polygons so far:
And the terrain wireframe:
I’m still working on the lighting, and some volumetrics would be great! Good call, thanks for your input. Might go for an evening or morning lighting setup, but some mist and fog and distant clouds are definitely in order here.
