» Sat Aug 06, 2016 1:23 pm
I really noticed the Skyrim feel in that kitchen hearth—in a good way.
I'll tell you one thing that makes people respond well to your house mod is you have a natural tendency to texture everything (or pick resources) that look well worn, which makes a place look lived in—like a proper home. A lot of modders (and I'm not picking on anyone here, but some of the old modders were particularly bad about this) choose models with textures that look so shiny and new that they end up being uncanny. They's hand pick the prettiest, shiniest things without considering how well they fit together or the setting they're in. I would often tell people making new resources to dirty them up, because a hammer in Morrowind should not look like it came fresh out of Home Depot. A wardrobe in Morrowind should not look like Ikea furniture. Most of that stuff would be passed down for generations, because before the Industrial Revolution no one could afford to buy new stuff whenever they felt like it, not even the nobility.
You've chosen an aesthetic that speaks to people of old castles, and how the benches dip in the middle because they have been polished by a thousand asses and have been scraqed by people's keys. Most people never pay attention to that level of detail, but they subconsciously respond to it. I remember a story about a group that won an engineering showcase hands-down by building a full replica mill, because they'd recently learned the (obscure to anyone but an engineer) subject tribology, which is the study of how materials wear and tear, and spent the weekend detailing the place by sanding down all the steps on the staircase so they looked worn down from 1000 footsteps. Good video game design takes this into account, so it's part of the Elder Scrolls aesthetic, and Fallout, and Bioshock. To a player, it immediate says, "This is a good game," because it's an added level of realism.
Your aesthetic is also consistent, and you're right about the defined purposes helping make everything feel like it's there because it belongs there as well. It looks like you do what I do, which is imagine a character walking into the room and doing something in it. Where do they put down the hammer? What were they doing with it, and where would it naturally rest when they're done. I love laying out workspaces because I get to do a full simulation of someone crafting in my head (because I don't have access to a jewellery workshop anymore, so I only get my crafting fix on the computer these days).