Desert House - My First ArchViz Steps

First one is more natural looking than previously. I like the changes you've made. 2 things I could change: - blurred tree on the right is most distracting. It's more saturated than other vegetation and seems to be floating in the air. Left blurred tree looks ok in my eyes. I know it's space-filler , but I would rather put a car, flowerbed or sculpture at the front of the house and place more vegetation at the back on the right of the house or simply crop the bottom of the image a little bit. - I can see through the inside of the house - showing that it's empty which is a bit uncanny. I'd either put some random things inside, or make windows less transparent, i.e. make glass darker and more reflecting or put blinds in the windows. Otherwise it's good ;) Second image feels a bit empty, and the grain of the wood texture is too big. It would benefit from adding more objects and cropping from the bottom as well.

ok. i'm back for round 2! i've gone ahead and placed the house into its more natural context on a cliff overlooking northern california coast where it's actually being built. i dumped the desert and worked on making the environment pretty believable. did i succeed in that? i'm still not sure that the stucco texture is working. all veg is post-work in PS. please feel free to rip it apart. i could use good criticism so i can develop an eye for this type of thing. thanks very much! m

well even when using an hdri as an ibl I will usually always have a directional light within the scene to cast my shadows where I want them. As far as beveling or smoothing, I almost always do one or the other since nothing technically has a perfect hard edge. Which one you choose to do usually depends on 1. how far from the camera it is 2. How sharp or soft the hard edge really is in its material etc. hope that helps

yup and yup. i wasn't brave enough to tackle foreground plants and bushes yet. soon though... and i only used the HDRI to light this and not a directional sun too. i was afraid that adding a directional light or physical sun would conflict with what the HDRI was doing. is there a way to have them coexist? what do people usually do? also: when modeling, do most people smooth or bevel hard edges and corners or is that overkill (e.g., where two walls meet, etc.)?

Hello! I'm beginner myself as well, but what strikes me here at the first look: - you've got random clumps of grass on the back plane (background) while front lack plants totally - I expect the desert scene to be lit brightly with strong directional sun while yours looks like on a cloudy day (lit with skylight only)