Getting into architectural rendering

ely862me · 21 Apr 2012, 11:18

I'm not an architect and it is pretty hard to me to achieve some good renders in this field. Although there are projects unrelated to architectural stuff, they are not enough for a 3d modeler to make his living!
I have rejected many projects only because I was not sure if I can handle the situation(plus I have some problems with colors ) !

Will you consider the next renders acceptable ? Would you pay for them as a visualization ?

Rendered in Maxwell and retouched in Photoshop(added bushes,tree from the right and left up corner and the sky changed ).

Original render

Inserted vegetation and sky

I have tried couple of times to achieve realistic renders and I failed each time. That's why I mess around with renders like this !

Thanks and have a great time doing your best !

ely862me · 21 Apr 2012, 11:45

Some color correction and vignetting applied to the original render.

jason_maranto · 21 Apr 2012, 14:31

I'm not an architect either so take my advice for what it's worth -- but I think the raw render looks pretty good, however the tiling artifacts of the textures/materials kills it for me...

Something that will really help (if you are serious about getting into Arch Viz) are the Arroway materials I made for Maxwell. I made them specifically for people like you to help get you started with a high-quality option with a low learning-curve -- to get better results, faster.

You can get the SketchUp (SKM) material sets here:

301 Moved Permanently

(www.maxwellrender.com)

That post will have a link to another post to download the matching MXMs -- this should work perfectly in all versions of the plugin and may help you.

One thing I should say clearly here -- While the materials I made are completely free, the Arroway textures are a commercial product and you would need to have the full-rez textures to use my materials... so there would be some financial outlay. Also worth saying is that these material comprise the entire Arroway line (a total of 775 SketchUp materials) so I would only download and install what you think you actually will need/want to use.

For more information on Arroway textures go here: http://www.arroway-textures.com/

Disclaimer - I do not work for Arroway or Maxwell, and I don't get any money for these sets... I just honestly think they will be very helpful.

Best,
Jason.

ely862me · 22 Apr 2012, 18:32

Hi, Jason !

Thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it !

I will take a look on those materials to see how things work around !

Have a great time !

Ecuadorian · 22 Apr 2012, 19:17

Looks like a good start. I'm an architect and I've been doing archviz for some time, but I'm still no expert. However, I did find some very good advice online that I'd like to share with you:

10 things you’ve got to do to improve your archviz work

Oh, and give Lumion a try. It's king when you need lots of vegetation, and it pays for itself with only one animation you make for a client. Nice to see someone trying Maxwell, as I'm also interested in it. Did you use the SketchUp-integrated version?

ely862me · 24 Apr 2012, 09:35

Thanks Miguel ! That is some interesting advice and it is very welcome !
Regarding Maxwell , yes I use the integrated (free)version at the moment and it seems ok , I like the way it stores the materials(after you edited them) in the sketchup library ,and it also saves the scene automatic .

The images are a bit grainy , but I have baked only a few renders and that would be a small step in the learning curve .

ely862me · 24 Apr 2012, 16:36

Solid Rock !!!
Lumion is outstanding (my PC can't handle it completely-a lame dual core 2.8 , 2gb Ram and a 1gb 8600gt Nvidia videocard).
This is one of my first try ! For some reasons I can't apply certain materials(I suppose the exporting didn't went quite well) but , I am out of words !!

It's almost like a game in which you do whatever you want !

Too bad at the moment I don't make that much money and I also have a project running in background otherwise I would have done my best to buy a license !

As somebody said .. rendering with Lumion **It is almost like cheating ! **

Ecuadorian · 24 Apr 2012, 17:31

Yeah, my clients, friends and even architects have been very impressed with my Lumion images and animations. They say they look "more real" than the ones I've made with other render programs, despite the fact that Lumion is not physically-based... so it's actually the fakest.

While working with Lumion, put some game music in the background and suddenly work becomes epic.
If you have problems with some parts not appearing, explode them in SketchUp and maybe re-group them before re-exporting.

ely862me · 27 Nov 2012, 09:32

Nothing much going on but I had a project about some houses and I took one of the renders further to give it an artistic look(Fotosketcher and Photoshop).
Here's what I got

Some other landscape rendering done only with Lumion and Photoshop

Another render done with Sketchup and Photoshop

Here I tried to achieve a render that makes you meditate and think about the beauty that can be found around and inside us .(Lumion plus Photoshop)

Bryan K · 28 Nov 2012, 08:35

Cool stuff. I like the variety of styles.

ely862me · 29 Nov 2012, 09:47

Thanks Bryan ! I try different styles to see what I am good at.So far I clearly see I am not good yet(I hope) at realistic renders . Unfortunately realistic renders is what people want nowadays .

Will keep trying !

Cheers !

Carloh · 29 Nov 2012, 10:16

hello elisei, first i'd like to thank you for your awesome car-tutorial i bought! with my limited experience i think i can give you the advice not to focus on lumion to much. it's nice for playing around and have quick results but it will always lack the realism you are looking for. i would rather concentrate on rendering with thea,vray or maxwell or so. it's way more complicated to learn these programms but worth the effort and also more professional.

ely862me · 7 Dec 2012, 12:34

Hey, Carloh, I am glad my tutorial is still of interest ,and yes you are right about the rendering programs you are talking about . Some of them have a quick turnaround but they lack in realism .

At the moment I am trying kerkythea(just installed it ) and it looks promising .

sh00ks · 12 Dec 2012, 20:18

YOu indeed have a wide variety of styles, like that!

Kerky is a good renderprogram to start with. Kind of a steap learning curve, but there are some good tutorials out there (Material by Patrick mainly) wich explains it well and understandable!

When you get familiair to Kerky, Thea Render would be the next best thing.
But I only know these to, so I'm biased

Keep up the creative work!