Vetting builder here, can I get a more expert opinion on this interior?

[Jagriel_1 (konstantine)]

Hey Devforum, I’m a group owner/funder who’s currently hiring for a new project. I’ve been vetting this candidate for my primary builder position (which I am paying 50k for). This project is 90% interior and lighting, so it’s very important that my builder is good in these. One of the requirements of this position was expertise in interior design, which was not present in his portfolio as he says he is an exterior focused builder. He said if I allowed him to prove himself, he would design a good interior.

He showed me his work after 12-15 self reported hours of building (all models and parts designed by him). I think it’s really good, obviously the lighting has some issues (he said he only spent a few minutes on it) but it’s well made and put together imho. The negatives I have with it are probably due to creative direction and not due to his skills.

However, as I’m investing a lot into this build, I want a lot more expert opinions. I myself am only a novice builder, so I can’t ascertain how efficient the building is for the hours put in or if there’s any other problems I’m missing. What do you guys think? Interior design specialists, please give me your thoughts!

(Link provided to the game here)

Sorry for the bad SS quality btw, I had to take them and write this up quickly. All thoughts appreciated!

[real_artxficial]

I think the lighting is the main issue. Lighting can be a make it or break it thing especially with cramped interiors. The neon pieces not having a light source makes them look weird in this.

[Duck_Ify]

Everything looks amazing in my opinion, but just as @real_artxficial said good and better lighting could improve this by 1000 times.

[Jagriel_1 (konstantine)]

Yea, I agree the lighting is the main issue. I told him to spend more time on it and update it. I also want to hire an experienced lighting/effects modeler for this reason.

[Noldorsoul]

I don’t think I’d personally pay 50k (around $625) for this job, the interior looks like it’s been created entirely in Roblox Studio which is notorious to have some outrageous poor topology which does lead to a bunch of lag for assets that aren’t that detailed; in my personal opinion you could probably find more detailed and better optimized models for a tenth of the price.

Funnily enough there are really talented 3D artists who are more experienced in optimization, lighting and set building who don’t charge a lot of money but most of them aren’t Roblox developers.

[Noldorsoul]

I’m a 3D artists myself so one word of advice I’d give to people who are commissioning this sort of stuff is to always get another 3D artist to just look at the topology of what they created, sometimes it looks normal but it may be terribly optimized.

[Jagriel_1 (konstantine)]

What would you pay for this instead?

[Noldorsoul]

Around 15k I think is probably the fairest amount considering the time and effort put into it,
contact me on discord if you want better analysis though since I can only really judge it on these images.
my username is noldorsoul on discord aswell

[Jagriel_1 (konstantine)]

Added. I’ll send you the experience link. This is a concept prototype tho, it doesn’t represent the actual game we’re gonna make.

[meepface1337]

Along with what some others commenters have suggested, the toilet seems disproportionate, and the space of the wall above sinks is typically adorned with a mirror, as well as a drainage system (facade) for the shower, and maybe some shower supplies on the shower caddy(?) to make it seem more lived in. That, and the fact that there are idle and empty bowls on the countertop unequipped with utensils or foodstuffs make it seem more desolate. I have been to several fully staged houses, and if they are done by a good interior designer that chooses to have bowls or plates on surfaces meant for eating, they always have a complementary set of cutlery beside it. Thus, I find that aspect to be lacking in continuity. Hope this helps!!1!!1

[meepface1337]

To further expound upon some issues, I have taken the liberty of going into the game and highlighting some small errors, redundancies, and some egregious inconsistencies, starting with some egregious plumbing inconsistencies (to his credit, there was a shower drain which was not present in your pictures.)

(These pipes have a terrible layout and you would not want to live in a house that had these errors alone)

(what door handle looks like this?)

(this is absolutely redundant in an apartment setting, anybody would know that…)

And lastly, the absolute WORST and most UNFORGIVABLE error…
(also the dish drainer isn’t anchored for whatever reason)

LOOK AT THAT PLATE!!
look at it…

I make no claims ad hominem, but these are not the makings of a good interior, you need somebody who is proficient in interior design if you need an interior designed, because your builder does not have expertise in that regard. (edit, removed one listing about the plumbing of the sink, I am blind.) And all this to say, it is not a bad interior, it is just not expertly crafted.

[Adrian1zj]

Honestly speaking, as someone who likes to deeply mess around with Roblox building structures and patters to attain specific outcomes that I want (so much to the point I can see an object IRL and know how to make it in just stock Roblox studio), these assets for that amount of time seems kinda, underwhelming?

Take for instance if we changed the light to compatability (or whatever it’s called), any detail that was added using shadows would 100% disappear and leave you with something bland.

There is no use of “artificial shadows” or “fake shadows” on models which are causing by making one side darker than another (through unions or negates on an inside surface), thus meaning it would be hard to distinguish the models true shape and feel even with proper lighting.

(my tip for anyone out there who wants to become just a pure roblox studio user is to use compatability lighting to see how much fake shadows can really add to your build once you switch over to voxel, shadow, or future after experimenting)

The next thing I’d like to talk about is asset creation.

Let’s start off with the bowl and plate, they just feel so chunky, like someone who touched studio for the first time.
It shows a lack of usage of the power given to creators of the Roblox platform.
(Normally I wouldn’t nitpick this, but for that price and applying for interior building, people have to understand that it’s the smaller details that matter a lot and really create the feel of the room)

I’m gonna be honest with you, the bowl feels like someone just cut a whole sphere in half and decided to negate the insides by around 0.025 stud radius.
The next thing is the plates, this person could have used union an a sphere, flattened it out, and then negated it to cause a more natural feeling plate, but instead, it feels like a plastic tray you’d see at the mall or something, and the worst thing is is probably the fact that it’s only 6 step process which literally takes under 5 seconds to do.

sphere spawn
union sphere
flatten sphere
Duplicate and downsize new sphere (negate part now)
cut in half with negate
Union

So in my opinion as an actual person who loves cramming detail into objects for no reason, the lack of attention to detail for assets in general for interiors is pretty concerning.

I would go over this into more technical aspects, but that would probably be like crushing some who’s already destroyed.