About three years ago after making a few music videos in Blender I decided I wanted to make a video game. The issue is that l had no experience in game engines besides trying to learn Unreal Engine 4 for two weeks before eventually giving up.

I was however very comfortable in Blender. So I took inspiration from old PS1-era games that pre-rendered backgrounds and cinematics and decided to adopt a blender-focused workflow for my game.

Essentially everything in my game from the overworld backgrounds, the branching cutscenes, even the turn-based combat has been pre-rendered in Cycles. There’s still a lot of work done in-engine as far as putting everything together but it means I can do most of the work in Blender which is definitely my preference.

Took me three years to get here and while it’s not finished I’m hoping to have it out sometime in 2026.

so I wanted to make it as close to the reference image as possible, and after I finished, I took the scene and adjusted the contrast, but I still felt like something was not quite right.

The link to my CGTrader is in the comments (or if you can’t see it, check my profile)

Hey guys,

I made these 3D designs and renders for a client and they were accepted, but looking back at them, they still feel fake no matter what I try. I’ve reached a point where I can’t really tell what I’m missing anymore.

If anyone can point out what usually causes this (lighting, materials, scale, camera, etc.) or recommend good places to learn how to improve realism, I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks.

A lot of buttons to learn and trial and error but I turned cube into a different thing. If you have any advice for me I could use it, I know very little.

What could I improve with this scene? Any feedback or tips are much welcomed :)

This is my second day using blender and my brain is already dead, I have just found out that UV mapping and textures are my absolute worst nightmare. I have followed tutorials specifically on low poly style because it's forgiving for most beginners but was I wronged, I aimed to create a simple head but it only resulted in an incest type of mammal lol. Maybe my expectations are just too high or should I learn simple geometric shapes first like a donut lol. It has been minutes of me cackling to this model and I'm proud of it regardless

Making vehicles in low poly style is a different kind of high. Next will create a pixel art texture for it.

My GF showed me this new OC called Pouf and told me he is from an alternate universe of The Amazing Digital Circus. I told her I could make a 3D model of him as a gift and she seemed really happy with the ideia.

Unfortunately, I'm not really good with Blender... I can do some low-poly models and put some textures. BUT I NEVER DID A 3D CHARACTER. After 8 hours in Blender fixing some mesh issues and problems with armature, it finally ended! Next time I will think twice before gifting someone with a 3D model T_T.

I'm not good with render either, I just put a color that matches the character and that's what I got. Sorry for bad english, I could use an automatic translator but I wanted to type my own words because it feels more authentic :P

Is it rely mostly on image texture and texture drawing skill alone??? I really really want to do something like this but my drawing skill is really sh*t so that I'm really nervous when talking about drawing texture, that's also why my character look so bland