How much detail is TOO much detail

shg0816_13461e8196

I am in the process of creating an outside scene that is supposed to look junky (think junkyard type scene); but am wondering how much small detail is too much detail. For example, I have piles of cigarette butts on the ground, groups of beer bottles on a old table, etc. At what point do you determine when enough is enough detail? Sure I know it's up to the artist, but is there a proverbial law of diminishing returns?

Gordig

I would say the relevant considerations are:

1. What resolution are you rendering?
2. How close will these objects be to the camera?
3. Will they be in focus, both in terms of camera DOF and their importance in the scene?

At the crossroads of those questions lies your answer. 

Fishtales

Sometimes less is best. If you are here asking then you must feel it is too busy. Cigarette buts would get trampled, flattened, washed away and kicked about. The same with the beer cans...they wouldn't stay long grouped on the table and they would get spread out by the wind and some people throwing them away rather than leaving them sitting. The same with paper, bottles and other stuff...it doesn't just stay there it slowly 'disappears' :)

Chezjuan

In addition to the responses above, one other consideration is will the scene fit into the GPU memory if you are rendering in Iray (or, if rendering with the CPU, will having all the details significantly slow the render). 

I tend to add details to scenes to give them a more "real" appearance. For example, if I am rendering people talking in a living room, I might find a remote control prop and stick it on a table or throw a newspaper or tablet or something in the view. I don't do too much for all the reasons stated so far, but I find that renders without at least some small details tend to have a "something is not quite right" feel about them.