Interior lighting question

[Josip_ZG]

Hello, everyone.

I'm working on an interior scene. It's kind of a gallery space, needs uniform lighting. It has only four light sources (long LEDs on the ceiling) and whatever the sunlight comes out of the window.
I've done some basic color grading in PP and applied depth of field. That is it. I would like to achieve more realism, but I don't know where I'm lacking. Is it the materials? I suppose a lot of realism in interior depends on walls and floor. I will appreciate any opinion, from advice to pointing me towards some tutorial and such.

Thank you.

Post-processed and raw render from KS. (Notice the highlights on the ceiling, that's cause I've duplicated light sources and moved them, then hid the area lights. Scene was too dark without them.)

Edit: Material on the boxes is painted styrofoam.

[RRIS]

A few things keep coming up in these sort of topics, but first things first. Try to study quality interior photography. Look up websites like Dezeen or Designboom. Check the interior section and properly study the photos there. It's not easy to make something without proper reference materials. On to the tips:

- texture scale: those floor tiles look huge. Maybe they're this big in real life, but then for sure the space between the tiles would be much much tighter. Now it looks like an upscaled bathroom wall tile.

- texture position: you have a thin strip of those tiles running along the wall, that wouldn't happen in real life. Try to position your textures according to how you'd put them in in real life.

- your windows don't have frames?

- scene details: add small details like plinths, wall sockets, switches, thermostats.. stuff like that.

- geometry: no room is perfect, no surface is perfectly level. So, when you have all those elements in your scene on the floor, or stacked against each other, try to leave a little bit of space so you get strong shadowlines there. Not too much so that stuff appears to hover, not too little that you don't see anything.

- camera: position your camera at eye level. I tend to stick to 1.7m camera height. Wide angles are ok, and often used in interior photography, but perspective is usually corrected so that the vertical lines don't converge. Look up in the manual how to use camera shift.

- dof: try not to use dof for interior shots, unless you're taking a detail shot of something close-up.

- lighting: you may prefer even light, but it comes at the risk that nothing stands out and everything looks very artificial. Instead you may want to try to play with contrast and shadows. Let the sun do a bit more than just cast a tiny sliver of light near the entrance.

- lights: study real armatures, those things you have in there are really long, you don't see those often. I'd divide those in 3 at least.

- environment: those white planes are too overbearing and don't work as well as the street view you have. Maybe it works to move the buildings in a little bit more (so the street doesn't look so wide) and add one or two people passing by perhaps?

[Josip_ZG]

Thank you very much for the answer, RRIS, I appreciate your speed and detailed analysis.
More so cause this was a panic post by me, I had to set up everything before post-processing today.

As I didn't have much time, I didn't correct everything. But here's the final result.

To answer some of your lines:

Those windows have frames, but they are like thin sheets of metal, laying on the ground and walls. Barely visible. I regret not noticing it in real room, but I wasn't responsible for the making of the model.
I love that note about DoF in interiors, makes sense and I've even tried it just to see for myself.

- geometry: no room is perfect, no surface is perfectly level. So, when you have all those elements in your scene on the floor, or stacked against each other, try to leave a little bit of space so you get strong shadowlines there. Not too much so that stuff appears to hover, not too little that you don't see anything.

I never anticipated this. Makes sense.

All in all, thanks a lot again!

[RRIS]

Glad I was able to help! I know the panic posts, been there, done that! You improved your work, hope you keep sharing your progress on next projects!
I forgot a small thing, but remember that you can enable 'rounded edges' for your objects. Since you have so many sharp angular shapes here, it wouldn't hurt to put a 1mm rounded edge on those elements. A small highlight on edges here and there always works wonders.