Forum newcomer, Federico, posted a very nice photo-matching work based on a photo of the xcoma bar by KUU in xian, China. Although his camera is clearly lower and farther away than the original, all other aspects of his render are done remarkably well. The general lighting is very similar and the materials too (besides the ceiling concrete, which is a bit too rough). This is a great start on the forum!

Visit Federico’s xcoma bar – xian china Forum Thread, and check out some of the real bar photos below…

More about the bar can be found at – KUU: xcoma bar via designboom

Render vs. Photo / KUU xcoma bar is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Peter shared a new set of renders for a residential project on the northern edge of Oslo’s Sofienberg park by Logg Arkitektur. An urban visualization integrated in photos he took on site that reminds me a lot of his previous work on the Kilburn Vale Visualizations, which represented (for me) his best work at that time. With these new renders I think Peter has pushed the limits even further, achieving high levels of realism and integration within photos.

I love the dusk images the most, and especially the road shot! Visit Peter’s blog to see his post about this work – teglverksgata 2

Peter Guthrie’s Teglverksgata 2 Visualizations is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

The first month of 2012 on the forums was about summarizing your work during 2011. I asked all of you to share your best work on the forums TECH TALK sections, and after a few days of voting on the Blog’s Facebook Fan Page… it’s time to hand out some cool gifts!

I’d like to thank all who took part in this and hope that more of you will get on-board the next one. I know that the Facebook like voting process was not ideal, but this was intended to be a less formal event and next time I might make some changes to the way we all vote (feel free to contact me with suggestions).

You had 4 categories to take part in : Lighting, Postwork, Modeling and Texturing. And here are the best ones according to your votes…

Lighting

The lighting category is sponsored by Dutch Skies 360°, HDRI panoramic skies for CG Visualization, Film, VFX and more… From the Netherlands by Bob Groothuis.

Bob’s HDRI skies are in use by many architectural visualization artists and lately also been known to be used in high-profile game production and film… Dutch Skies were used in pretty much the entire Infinity Blade II game, done with UDK for the iPhone and iPad by Epic Games. It was also used in the film Immortals (mentioned in a fxguide interview about the making of the VFX at 02:34).

We have 2 winners in the lighting category…

First Place : Forum Member – Blowback (Chris Kowal). Getting all 4 volumes of Dutch Skies 360.

Second Place : Forum Member – DBRender. Getting the Dutch Skies 360 – Autumn Pack.

Visit the complete 2011 Lighting Summary Thread.

Postwork

The lighting category is sponsored by Cebas PSD-Manager, A most advanced PSD file exporter for 3ds Max that will save you lots of time by saving your renders with all channels and many more masks directly in a PSD file to be edited in Photoshop or other supporting applications.

We have a winner in the postwork category and also discount coupons to be handed out (I’ll be contacting you one by one about this, so if you don’t have updated contact details in your forum profile – this is the time to update it)

First Place : Forum Member – tiktiktiktik. Getting a PSD-Manager 3 License.

There is also a Special Sponsor Pick… Daniel Schmidt, the developer of PSD-Manager liked what Pixelflakes had to show very much and they will also get a free license!

And in his own words…

I like to give PixelFlakes a license for the best Photoshop post production tutorial in the contest and so they can further speed up their 3dsmax / Photoshop workflow.

Visit the complete 2011 Postwork Summary Thread.

Modeling

The modeling category is sponsored by DesignConnected, probably the most popular provider of great 3d models of beautiful furniture for use in architectural visualization and more.

DesignConnected’s aim is to deliver the best quality digital content for all the interior design professionals. Starting from all the design classics, going through the most iconic modern design furniture and ending with the latest design arrivals at the furniture fair stands. You just can’t go wrong with picking a DesignConnected model…

We have 3 winners in the modeling category…

First Place : Forum Member – DBRender. Getting 200 EUR in DC vouchers.

Second Place : Forum Member – Exor. Getting 150 EUR in DC vouchers.

Third Place : Forum Member – Kodissimo. Getting 100 EUR in DC vouchers.

Visit the complete 2011 Modeling Summary Thread.

Texturing

The texturing category is sponsored by MightyTiles, the procedural tiling plugin for 3ds max created by Dieter Finkenzeller (the developer of BRIX). The new plugin offers the same functionality supporting the latest builds of 3dsmax & VRay.

We have 3 winners in the texturing category…

First Place : Forum Member – DBRender. Getting MightyTiles LIFE TIME License!!!

Second Place : Forum Member – Jiminy-Billy-Bob. Getting MightTiles License.

Third Place : Forum Member – JimmyRibas. Getting MightTiles License.

Visit the complete 2011 Texturing Summary Thread.

2011 Forums Summary Winners! is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Studio xoio previously shared 19 free cutout people they made, and today they release 65 more. This time they used a green screen to make the masking process a lot easier and with better results.

Go ahead and get them people here…

Here’s how they look in the field doing it…

xoio decided to detach their freebie section from their blog into a new site they named xoio-air where they are going to keep deploying content back to the community… Air it out. That is a great idea!

65 Free Cutout People by xoio is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

blackhaus shared their latest Black Living Set scene images on the forums, and although it is black by black, it sure did light up the day! Great attention to details here… superb materials & lighting. And you got to love that Campana Vermelha Armchair by Fernando and Humberto.

Searching for that chair I just realized it is from DesignConnected !! That’s a time saver (search for Vermelha). It seems that the real one comes only in red, is that really so? would love to feel how it is to seat on and get it in black.

Here are blackhaus’s images that they made in this set.

Check out blackhaus’s forum thread too – Black Living Set by blackhaus

Black Living by blackhaus is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Lukasz Gradzki from renderare breaks down the process of creating one of the images for the Minoco Wharf project they were involved in making visuals for. What I like the most about their process on this one, is how simple the basic model could be… and how they use textures instead of modeling and lights. I do find it funny how a SketchUP model is the “base” for further AutoCAD modeling… It seems almost sacrilege to me (more about the tools we use in an upcoming post).

Author: renderare

renderare studio makes illustrators of unbuilt spaces and architectural designs. It was co-founded in 2007 by Lukasz Gradzki & Kamila Gradzka, after working together in HKR Architects in Dublin.

Introduction

I’ll start by showing one of the final results first, so you’ll know what we are aiming for with the process described below.

The entire brief was just one page of simple sketches and a very basic SketchUP block model of the site, to give us an idea about the massing and approximate viewpoints required.

We had very short time-frame to turn 5 views around so it was necessary to cut as many corners as possible especially when it came to modeling.

This is how the SketchUP model looked like…

Basic Modeling

The 3d model of the site was built in AutoCAD (Yes… AutoCAD). After importing the SketchUP massing we used it as a template to build the basic geometry.

All buildings had to be shown during different times of the day and there was no time to illuminate them with real light fixtures, and this is without even considering the increase in render times that it would cause… so we’ve put surfaces set back slightly under the glazing to use them as self illuminating objects later.

They were split into 4 layers to allow some variation… Surfaces for inner glaze skin of the buildings

All slabs don’t have thickness i.e. they are just flat regions.

Slab edges are represented by polylines. We are going to turn them to renderable splines in 3ds max and assign different material than the off white slabs.

Outer glazing is modeled again just as polylines, also to have renderable splines modifier applied to them. They are divided into five layers as we will be assigning five different patterns.

Just to show the offset distance between inner and outer glass.

Here is the camera viewport with some entourage from 3d libraries was added in 3ds max.

Instead of importing the DWG, it is linked to the scene to allow rapid changes and updates. Here you can see the inner glazing surfaces.

The slabs.

Slab edge as renderable splines.

Internal lights surfaces (inner glazing turned off).

Textures

We used textures to act as the lights inside the buildings in this scene. This is the texture for self luminance of the towers.

And a different texture for the glow in the ground floor areas.

This brings us to the complete linked model with the outer skin as renderable splines of various sizes and appropriate textures for opacity applied.

We used five different opacity patterns for outer glazing.

And a bump map for glazing to give an impression of some window divisions…

Final Images Post Process

We render an ID mask for quick selections.

This is what came out straight from V-Ray.

Replaced the sky in the background.

Reflection of the sky in glazing, ground floor activity and a bit of lens blur in the foreground.

Color balance and contrast corrections.

Final image with cutout people and vignette added.

A similar approach was used for the other images in this set we made.

I hope you find this useful in your own work, seeing that relatively simple modeling, without too much detail can still turn out very good when there is not much time and with smart use of textures to compensate for missing model bits and lights.

Cheers,

Lukasz Gradzki.

Making of Minoco Wharf is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Jump starting this week with an inspriation piece from GRAUX & BAEYENS architecten. The photo set taken for their DS House by photographer Julien Lanoo have a very familiar look & feel to them… can you guess what I’m thinking about? Some of them look more like renders then photos, but I like it. The toned down colors, framing and the great reference these are for materials such as grass, glass, metal & wood.

Photography by Julien Lanoo

original post House DS / GRAUX & BAEYENS architecten at archdaily

House DS / GRAUX & BAEYENS architecten is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Ramon Zancanaro mentions in his latest forum thread that he’s been “far from the 3d by long time…”, and I ask – Where Were You??? I would like to go too!!! Just glancing over his latest renders tells us it was a good place to be. This scene was intended as a cloth study, and a remarkable one in turned out.

Here are Ramon’s images that he made in this set. I also cropped a few 100% size details, so you can fully appreciate what he managed to achieve here.

Check out Ramon’s forum thread too – Second Floor, Block 1… (Quarto)

Quarto by Ramon Zancanaro is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

My never-ending quest of exploring pure 3d vs. postwork methods of doing architectural visualization has acquainted me with Pixelflakes. There latest “Concrete Cliff” postwork breakdown was pretty fascinating and I asked them if they could do a similar thing, but at night this time! They kindly agreed and the “Shipyard” was born. This is an exclusive Photoshop postwork process breakdown, starting from a raw & rather simple render, taking you all the way to a final striking visual. I’ve also started a cool exercise based on this scene in the forums postwork TECH TALK section… so we can all give it a try. see where it goes!

Author: Pixelflakes

Pixelflakes is a brand new visualisation company based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Founded in 2011 the company specialises in architectural visualization & media production. Their team gives back to the community that got them to where they are today, and this tutorial is part of that.

So… the video will show you how to take this raw render…

All the way into this final image…

Pretty amazing transformation for only postworking the raw render. I started to explore this style of visualization with the Black & White Towers miniMAX#01 session on the forums and the forum members picked up on this with great result. It will be nice to see what we can do with this one…

The Shipyard Photoshop Postwork Breakdown

The Shipyard Exercise

I’ve opened a special thread in the forums TECH TALK section for all of you to give it try… You will find the source files for download in the box below. It includes the raw night & a day version, as well as three more passes that will help you during the process.

Go ahead and try – The Shipyard Exercise

The Shipyard / Photoshop Postwork Breakdown is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Here’s a remarkable little Déjà vu for you… Last year started with a spotlight on Bertrand Benoit’s Tribeca Loft, and today he posts his new Chicago Loft images on the forums! Perfect timing & execution as you would expect of him. Last month Bertrand released the Chicago Loft scene for sale on Turbosquid in clean form so that you can populate it with your own models, serving as a showcase set – His current set of images is a great example of how this could be done.

Here are Bertrand’s images that he made in this set. You can see all of them in his flickr set for this.

Check out Bertrand’s forum thread too – Chicago Loft (comes to life)

Chicago Loft by Bertrand Benoit is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog