Lived in Home, not show room model, how to?
Sfariah D
Posts: 26,226
in The Commons
How do I make a 3D home look like someone lives there and it isn't a show room model of furniture. I don't want to over do it but I also want to do something to make the scene more lived in instead of too clean.
Comments
use references, add stuff, remove anything too overly designed
European Apartment is perhaps one of the only lived-in houses on the store, if you can tolerate the odd windows of that environment.
I kitbashed the snot out of mine. It's the little stuff... fridge magnets, a random stuffed animal on the shelf, a coffee cup that hasn't made it to the sink, the box of Kleenex on the end table...
Close your eyes and picture yourself in that room. Pretend you just moved in. What would you want to make it 'yours'? Would your furniture all match, or not? Are you tidy? Messy? Do you have houseplants? A random stool in the corner because you're short and need it to reach stuff on the top shelf? A guitar waiting to be played?
Make the room / furnshings a bit messy 'n dirty, make the furniture a bit used and torn, by using LIE, geo-shell, decal, even you can break their geometry... yada yada. For instance, in that European Aparment, there're dirt / stains / spider webs or something on the walls with decals... and quite a few of furnitures / furnishings look used...
Scratches on items, like furniture, vases and books, try to make some colors a tiny bit lighter to give them a faded look. Don't overdo it, you may not want to get into "need to replace those things urgently" territory.
Maybe also add some things that specifically do not match the style of the place, like some vase bought on a holiday, or a family heirloom.
A couple techniques I thought of in the shower that might help you:
Look at your house. Now, imagine fancy company is coming in an hour. What are you going to tidy up? Whatever you just reached for... put that in your scene.
Make things "not as they started." Put out a nicely arranged cookie tray... and take away three cookies. Put a CD case next to the CD player, but have it open and at an angle.
Other things to think of - what's the climate like? Should there be a fan or a space heater nearby? Are there pets or kids? What sort of gear would they have? Nothing says "lived in" like Fido's bowl in the corner and a couple of kid toys right where you're going to step on them...