RailClone2 is being released today by iToo Software, the makers of Forest Pack. It is a completely revamped version of the plugin, introducing a new approach to parametric modeling in architectural visualization. Celebrating this release in collaboration with IToo Software, I’m happy to offer all my followers a 20% discount coupon for one week only… starting now.

I’m doing 99% of my core architecture modeling inside SketchUP (The new SketchUP 2013 version is out by the way) and there was very little going on for me to change that until RailClone2 came along. I love SU components and how powerful they can be when done right, but RailClone2 is an order of magnitude beyond that and other solutions available for 3dsmax too. Its innovative approach to parametric modelling by using custom meshes, pre-made or defined by the user, arrayed along splines according to a set of construction rules to create sophisticated procedural objects is a game changer. With this tool you can conjure up complete building facades in seconds, fill a stadium with seating, layout roads, build bridges and interactively updated them just as fast too.

Check out this new demo-reel to get a better grasp of what it does :

RailClone2 is basically about saving time and money. We have developed a versatile tool, which does things I honestly can’t imagine creating in any other way. It can be used in a huge variety of projects, from visualizing a city master-plan to a discrete interior, optimizing workflows and allowing time for creativity

Daniel Quintero, iToo Software CEO

How RailClone2 Works & Key Features

the plugin is designed to help artists create sophisticated reusable parametric models using an easy-to-understand node based editor. RailClone2 combines, deforms, slices, bevels and distributes meshes known as Segments along one or more Base Reference splines according to construction rules defined using Generators and Operators. The interplay of these three parts is called a Style and is created using the Style Editor.

All you need to do is define the construction rules, RailClone2 does the rest for you.

Here’s are a few short videos capturing the work with the Style Editor while creating…

A Brick Wall

RailClone includes a graphical Style Editor, where you can create sophisticated structures, defining the pieces, generators, and construction rules. Randomize elements, add conditionals, define parameters and much more with only a few clicks.

A Bookcase

RailClone 2 allows multiple construction blocks for each object, named Generators. Besides the default linear generator available in RailClone 1.x, the new version introduces Arrays. You can use it to create walls, pavements, facades and other fancy structures.

Stadium Seats

And Using the new Points-cloud view mode, together the native geometry shaders for Mental Ray and V-Ray, RailClone lets you create huge parametric objects, made up of thousands of detailed parts… same level of performance we came to know and love about Forest Pack.

Here is a small segment :

And the big stadium :

RailClone2 Key Features List

• Easy-to-use style editor using a familiar node-based UI.
• Create, Save, and share custom styles using the fully customizable library browser.
• Use predefined styles from an expanding library of over 280 predefined objects including Fences, Railings, Barriers, Traffic, Walls and much more.
• Create 1D or 2D arrays, target each part of the array with different Segments or create sequences and conditional rule sets.
• Using the new Points-Cloud display, even objects made from thousands of segments can be easily previewed in the viewports, making modification simple and maintaining effortless interactivity.
• Use V-Ray and Mental Ray’s native geometry shaders to automatically create instances on-the-fly. Create huge parametric objects, made from thousands of detailed parts, quickly and easily.
• Advanced algorithms deform geometry to follow curvilinear paths or create double-curved 2D arrays. With RailClone2 sloped walls, handrail stairs, domes, and stepped fences are no longer a problem in 3DS Max.
• Manipulate segments using operators. Easily mirror, combine, sequence, randomize material IDs or geometry, and create conditional rule sets all from within the style editor.
• Link properties to numerical parameter nodes to control multiple objects from a single input. Use arithmetic operations to build mathematical relationships between properties.
• Use closed splines to crop object geometry.
• Compatible with RailClone 1.x styles.

The RailClone Styles Library

RailClone Pro comes with a Library of more than 280 predefined styles, including Fences, Railings, Barriers, Traffic, Walls, and other models. The library is fully customizable, allowing you to add new categories and models with a single click and share them with your colleages.

The RailClone Gallery

Check out the images on the RailClone Gallery featuring, among others, winners of the miniCHALLENGES that were held on this blog in the past.

About iToo Software

iToo Software, founded in 1999 in Spain, is a 3D software development company, creators of Forest Pack and RailClone, plugins for Autodesk® 3ds Max® and 3ds Max Design®. This release is part of the company´s developing program for 2013, which had its first milestone with the release of Forest Pack 4, and will keep on with additional updates throughout the year.

RailClone2 by iToo Software Released is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Vasilis Koutlis from studio xDream3D, recently shared on the forums their work on the Giannitsa House Interiors which I really liked – specifically, the one shown up above for the composition, material work and lighting. I asked Vasilis to share with us some insight about the process of making this scene and this making of was born. Enjoy!

Hi guys!

First of all, I would like to thank Ronen for having us in his website and for paying attention to our work. I have to admit that after our last year’s distinction and the awards I was given by the blog for my personal project The Cube House, many new clients approached us and thus we gladly stepped up to the plate when asked to write about the making of our last project.

Here are the images we made for it…

In the project – House in Giannitsa, we were asked to work on a design style which does not suit us, the neoclassical. Our proposition was to combine a few modern lines with clean-cut ones mostly in constructions and furniture so that the final result would be more appealing to the young couple.

Therefore, having the floor and the ceiling as our basis, since they were the two things the client liked, we made an effort to create a space that was basically functional and intertemporal. These are the pictures and the floor plans we received from the client in order to study his space.

Modeling & Decoration Style

Apart from the masonry of the house and some other constructions such as false ceilings, fireplace, TV cabinet and radiator covers all the other models I used for furnishings and decorations are ready-made 3D models by Designconnected and Evermotion so I will not mention these simple modeling techniques. I prefer to show you the study process we follow when we deal with this part and how it relates to the project photorealism.

In the beginning, the furniture was arranged to see the functionality of the space.

After quickly placing a camera and lighting I did some render tests in order to have something to talk about with the client.

The client didn’t like the result so much… To be honest, I didn’t like it either. So I began to rearrange the furniture and tried to fix the whole lighting issue that we will discuss later. The result after a few tries.

Software Used

The most common computer software we use are 3ds Max, V-Ray and Photoshop.

The basic scene setup I use since 2010 is LWF Gamma 2.2 and I’m very pleased with it… especially with the shaded parts of my project. In order to work properly with LWF you need to use professional monitors and calibrator to see everything in gamma 2.2 and to have a really smooth gradation of the medium hues. Personally, in my main PC I use 2 Lacie 324 monitors.

Camera Setting

The choice of the photograph perspectives is something we adjust depending on the space. I can say that my favorite style generally is the low height. Usually, the height I choose to place my camera is not over 120cm.

With V-Ray camera I usually use the rule of thirds. Below you can see how we adjust it in the Viewport Configuration.

The most important thing in adjusting the camera is white balance. The choice of the right color gives us a result where white color appears clear on our monitor. Here you can see an easy tutorial for choosing the proper white balance – White Balance setup with V-Ray Physical Camera and 3ds Max.

As for the other camera adjustments, the only thing I find worth mentioning is the choice of shutter speed which may need totally different numbers depending on the HDRi we’ll use.

Lighting

In my opinion, lighting is the most important element in 3d visualization and especially if doing it photo-realistic. When we lighten the scene properly, we have the following advantages.

• Quick test and final rendering.
• Beautiful and realistic material rendering.
• Will to finish our render in the best possible way!

In this project I paid great attention to the lighting since I wanted a result combining day light and artificial lighting. As a main source of light I placed a V-Ray Light Dome with an HDR map from CGSource.

I did these tests for all materials just with this lighting. When I finished most of them I added some IES photo-metric files and not V-Ray IES even if they are faster. I have noticed that the quality of the shadows with photometric IES is way better. I specifically chose IES files from the model+model Vol. 04 – Architectural Lights due to there excellent quality. Apart from the IES, I also used a V-Ray Sphere Lights for every spot to give a low-key light to its interior.

Then, for the hidden lighting I used V-Ray mesh lights. It’s the quickest and most practical way to create hidden lighting, especially in complicated false ceilings. The only “secret” here is that the modeling of the recess should be realistic so that the light can be realistically diffused inside the space.

Additionally, I used two V-Ray Plane Lights for the openings but not with a skylight portal. I gave a slight intensity Multiplier of 2 so that the space can be brighter and the noise can go away without any high number of subdivis for the materials. An extra tip I used is that I excluded the windows from the two V-Ray Plane Lights, but not from the curtains because I wouldn’t have a realistic result. This improved the render speed a lot!

I have been studying lighting for quite a while now. I’m still not totally pleased with the result…

Hopefully, I will be! Lighting an indoor space seems like a solution to an equation which, in order to find, we really need to know math (here, math is light). I would like to cite an article of mine in Vray World hoping that it will help new 3d artists as far as some general light principles and photography are concerned – Light in 3d Photography.

Materials

The materials I used were simple. In furniture, apart from a few minor changes, I didn’t change many things since the materials by Designconnected are of high quality. I will only show you the ones I created myself.

The Floor

The only thing worth mentioning here is that when we have a dark floor I use V-Ray Override Mtl to control the dark bounce of photons that will hit the wall and change the colors in the scene.

The Wall

The wall’s material is important and together with the window glass they help light to propagate better in the room.

The Wood

It is really nothing special; just a lot of subdivis for smoother results without noise.

Render Settings

I generally try not to make extremely high adjustments in the final renders. Just as much as needed to have a clean result as soon as possible. For example, in this project every render had a render time of about 1 hour at 2500px resolution and with a 20 core distributed render.

Post Production

For the color correction I would like to show a design from this project. I think that the most useful tip is color correction in the frame buffer during test renders. I like to play with levels and curves. I never touch exposure.

I save all render layers in .png format. Then I open Photoshop, File-Scripts-Load Files into Stack to quickly put all layers in the same .PSD file. This is the difference between original render and Post Production.

As you will find out there isn’t a huge difference because the first color correction has already been made in the Frame buffer. The first step concerns raw layers with which I slightly change GI and reinforce reflections. I sometimes use raw but also simple reflection as I did here with blending mode soft light. Below you can see all the adjustments of the raw layers one by one.

Then I continued with CC (Color Correction) adding a color balance and a curve for more contrast.

Then, with the help of selective color and render layers Wire Color and Render ID I chose specific parts of my render (Carpet, bag, walls, lacquer, marble, table, and sofa) creating masks and correcting their colors so as to look more vivid and normal. This is a process where the numbers we change are not standard. It takes a lot of practice and experience… Just do not be afraid to experiment and work with reference images trying to achieve the true colors you want.

Finally, I used Lens Correction creating a little distortion to the lens and chromatic aberration. Due to the fact that this creates a blur to the pixels I used a simple sharpen filter to finish it.

This is it! I hope you liked it and found a few useful tips in this article. Thank you for reading it and

if you have any questions, I’m at your disposal.

Making of House in Giannitsa is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

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Here’s the continuation to Scott Baumberger‘s Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) Approach to Architectural Visualization workflow article. In the previous article, Scott explained the process of making the ‘Viking Pavilion’ dusk exterior. This time he dives into the making of the ‘Viking Pavilion’ Interior, showing a basketball game at daytime.

This is the first of a series of renderings completed for the Viking Pavilion project on the campus of Portland State University in Oregon. The Client is ZGF Architects, also of Portland. The project is a proposed modernization / expansion of an existing student athletic center and the addition of a new 5,000 seat arena to be used for academic, athletic and community events. It was important to show not only that the arena would be used for PSU athletics but also for community events and concerts. As a result the team quickly decided that we would do a day and night-time view of the interior. The same viewpoint was chosen as a way to emphasize the flexibility of the space.

Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) Approach to Architectural Visualization

This article is an in-depth process breakdown of the ‘Viking Pavilion’ Exterior Dusk image following Scott’s intro to the subject of NPR – Non-Photorealistic Rendering.Make sure you read that introduction to understand what this style is all about and how Scott implements it in his daily work.

Read More…

For now, I’ll focus on the daytime view and then with the nighttime version discuss strategies for re-using many of these daytime assets. As with the exterior rendering, the architect had a well-developed SketchUP model and in this case had already nailed down the viewpoint. Here’s a screen shot of the provided model with SketchUP’s default style…

I knew right away the big challenge with these interior views, but for this one especially, would be populating the seats. But before I tackle this I want to develop a good base to work on top of. I also need several additional model exports for use in setting up masks in Photoshop. This first one is a “color-only” export, basically the default style but with edges turned off. Because it is an interior view, I made sure that the “use sun for shading” box was unchecked in the Shadow Settings pop-up.

Here are the ambient occlusion-only pass and the line work-only pass, similar to the exterior view. As before the line work is darkened somewhat for clarity.

Using the Shaderlight plugin, I added satin and gloss effects to the materials in the model. This is easily done by selecting the material in the model via alt-clicking the object. Open up the Shaderlight Material Editor and change the Type to Glossy, Satin, etc. For the wood floor and metal panel ceiling I added a high-gloss finish and most of the rest of the materials get a medium satin finish. And of course, I change the glass material to get reflections, etc. Although in this case, I made the mistake of leaving the glass visible.

In retrospect, the render times would have been much lower with the glass hidden (or deleted). As a result, rendering this view took about 3 hours. I experimented with different times of day, ultimately settling on an early morning setup which produced nice long shadows on the main seating area on the left side of the view.

As you can see, there are a few problems with the rendered output as-is. The floor pattern has coincident materials and so we get this unwanted zig-zag effect around the edges. Also, the floor near the exterior wall is much too bright. I could have spent time going into the model and fixing it there, which would probably require a test render (or two or three).

Instead, I took a couple of minutes to create the selection in Photoshop and hit it with the Paint Bucket. Done.

Here’s a composite of the rendered output, flat fix above, then the AO pass and the line work pass on top. AO & Lines are set to Multiply blending mode. At this scale it’s a little hard to see the difference, but the curtain wall reads better and the seats have a little more punch.

Now working back to front, I started with the large glass wall. The view outside is key to the architectural concept so the view needs to be fairly accurate. Since I wasn’t able to take photos of the context from the camera location (it would be inside the existing building!) I rely on a few screen-captures from Google Earth to get the overall massing and location of the neighboring buildings. Here you can see the heavily filtered and distorted base for the city backdrop.

It’s reasonably accurate but I do take some license to avoid any “tangents”, or points of visual coincidence or tension. (if you’re familiar with the Portland skyline you can see that there are two KOIN towers at the moment!)

I cut out the buildings from the sky and add a stock sky photograph just beneath the city in the layer stack. I was careful to look for a photo that has the same lighting as the interior – in this case a strong low light from the side.

Much better… now let’s look at the park visible between the arena and the buildings beyond. Working back to front with the park, I first added a tree line to create a new “horizon” that covers up the base of the buildings beyond.

Next I pasted a stock landscape photo of a lawn with a tree backdrop on top of the tree line image. This layer is set to 70% opacity to help blend the two edges together.

Then I added a few individual “hero” trees to create a foreground and to cover up some of the remaining artifacts from the background. Like the rest, I composed the trees to create a balance of foliage and voids and also paying attention to points of visual tension.

At this point I also get a late request to make sure Mt. Hood is visible in the background. (and the second KOIN Tower is now covered up too!) I also added a little color balance to the trees and horizon so that the greens outside are in sync with the green floor & seats inside.

Pulling back, I included the existing library just across the way, visible at the left edge. (this building is prominent in the exterior tutorial) I knew that only the top of the building would be visible so I didn’t need to be especially careful with transforming the photographs. The only real work here was to get the return walls to follow the perspective. I had to set up a temporary perspective grid for these walls and paint them in. Luckily they are all solid gray so it’s not too much trouble. It’s essential in these types of views to be faithful to the perspective. Small mistakes can really stand out and be very distracting.

The last step for the glass is to set it back a bit with a wash. I filled in the glass selection just like the exterior rendering with a medium blue color.

I then applied a layer style to the “glass base” layer and drop the opacity down to about 30%, again similar to the exterior example. Once applied, here is the finished glass surface.

A couple more items before we move on to the crowd…

I add glass handrails with the same layer style as the curtain wall, and also add scoreboards on the far side from client-provided photos of another stadium project (slightly altered to include the Vikings and their logo of course). There are a few areas where people will be in front of these items so I keep them low in the layer stack.

Now let’s tackle the crowd…

The first set of people in the right foreground need much more attention than the people further away. Before I get too far into it, I want to be sure the technique will work. I basically rounded up all of the entourage I could find of bird’s eye or similar angles of people from behind, especially at a three-quarter angle as similar as possible to this view. As you move up to the right edge, people are in more of a profile view. Even with tens of thousands of photos I quickly exhausted the supply of people that will work in this angle. There will have to be some repetition.

The process is simple but a bit tedious: work front to back to get as much overlap as possible (to reduce the amount of masking) and then paint in a mask where you would see the back of a seat. The guy standing at the lower right corner helped a lot too. At first I pasted in the people at 100% opacity but they felt really strong and the lights & darks were very distracting.

Here they are at 100%.

And here they are at 60% opacity.

Better, but the lines of the seats are distracting and ruin the effect. After a little experimenting, I settled on smudging these offending lines on a flat copy of the render. A tablet is very handy for this part. Here is the flat copy with the people turned off so you can see the effect.

And here it is with the people turned back on.

Much better, and once the foreground washes are in place the “squiggles” will go away whereas the straight lines would still be visible. I then moved on the next set of seats beyond, reusing a lot of the same people but mixing it up so there is no recognizable pattern.

Continuing around the bowl using the same technique I fill up the rest of the seats, reducing the saturation overall so I can add green color back. I also add a fully desaturated version of the close people group on top at about 50% to help them blend in.

Although the crowd is built up from individual photographs, once they get smaller I can get away with copying and pasting whole rows to fill up the seats. Here it is once all of the people are in, still very grey but now we have our crowd!

On top of the people group, I added a new layer set to Color blending mode and paint green on top of people’s shirts to get the feel of a home audience. I can sample green colors from the seats or even outside to get a good range. I don’t want it to be too static. I also add a bit of blue (sampled from the sky) to get a little more contrast – this further disguises the copied rows.

On the same layer, I also painted in skin tones to the people’s faces. This step really helped make the blobs look like people again. The strong red-green color contrast helps differentiate too… had their mascot been red or orange I suspect it would have been much more difficult!

Here is a closeup of the far stands to see the effect a little more clearly.

Next, I added the players and coaches on the floor.

There were also a few cheerleaders behind the goal at right to help break up that large blank area. I was given several photos from the client of the Vikings basketball team which really helped get the uniforms right. I was also able to find a few generic photos of other players in plausible positions on the court. In some cases, I adjusted the color & tone of the uniform to get it close to the Vikings green.

Originally, we were considering a scrimmage or something more casual, but we got a late request to make the scene as energetic as possible. So a full set of five players on each teams as well as a few on either bench fill it out. Soft shadows on the floor ground the player photos.

And here is a closeup of the action…

Next up is adding the logos to the floor and at the press box. These were all added non-destructively in Overlay and Multiply blending modes. The large “PSU VIKINGS” logo in the foreground has a bit of Inner Glow (set to Multiply) Layer Style to give it some depth – a variant of the glass style. Scoreboards and glass rails are turned back on.

Getting close now…

Now we’re into the finishing touches.

I added a few “god rays” coming in off-camera from the right. I experimented with different sizes and strengths of the effect but settled on just a couple limited to the court action and the seats just behind. I kept them really blurry so they aren’t too obvious. This effect really brought out the long shadowing from the original Shaderlight render, and it put additional emphasis on the focal point of the scene. I typically use Color Dodge blending mode at 100% opacity for this layer. Paint in large streaks with a low opacity brush (10 – 20%) and then a heavy Gaussian Blur filter to soften it up.

Pretty heavy dark blue washes set to Multiply were added to the lower third of the image. These are a bit stronger than usual again to emphasize the court and the daylight streaming in. This is the wash that also tames the foreground people.

At this point, we have pretty good overall tonal balance. Next I add the paper textures, which tend to lighten up the scene a bit.

At the very top of the stack I added two adjustment layers.

The first is Black & White – this is a nice trick that can help add some punch to a flat image. Don’t overdo it though. Add the B&W Adjustment Layer, but change the blending mode to Overlay or Soft Light. In this case I used Overlay set at 30% opacity. Play with the sliders and see what happens. For this image it brought back the tonal balance that I had without the paper texture and also seemed to add more contrast between the light and dark areas, moving attention once more away from those troublesome closeup people.

The second adjustment layer is Color Balance. Add this to the top of the stack and leave it at Normal 100%. Experiment with the sliders but use a soft touch, usually no more than +/- 10 is plenty to get the right effect. Look at all three tones (Shadows, Mid-tones, Highlights) and again just see what happens. With so much green in this scene I pulled several sliders towards red and magenta to help balance the color. This is a really good way to unify the rendering.

We’re done!

Here are a few closeups at 100%:

Looks like the Vikings are going to win!

Thanks for taking the time to read the article, I hope you will find it helpful to your work. Up next is the night time version of the rendering.

Scott.

Making of ‘Viking Pavilion’ NPR / Daytime Basketball Game is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

The Hurst House by John Pardey Architects + Ström Architects is simple, clean and beautiful. That hovering box thing has been done and redone so many times, but I like it – it works… and looks great at night (if you’re not too shy)! This set of photos is great reference for stone and wood facade cladding and as it happens – this house has severed as inspiration for the BEST Visualization of WEEK No. 17 by lichtecht, who offered it in concrete.

Photography by Andy Matthews and Andy Stagg.

original post Hurst House / John Pardey Architects + Ström Architects at archdaily

This building went into my Material / Stone board on Pinterest. I invite you to follow me and see what other great things I’ve curated there for some time now.

Hurst House by John Pardey Architects + Ström Architects is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

You can never have enough 3d trees & plants. Keeping your scenes greenies nice and fresh is important, so here’s a little heads up – April is almost up and you have 1-2 days left due to my previous heads up, demand was such Xfrog granted an extra full month to take advantage of the 50% discount on all Xfrog’s products. XfrogPlants are realistic, highly detailed, fully textured 3D trees, shrubs, and flowers, carefully modeled with the Xfrog procedural software. You have 600 species available in libraries or as individual species… just have your pick.

Feature image “CG Forest” by Mathew Borrett (Xfrog trees rendered in Modo 601).

All XfrogPlants are modeled “by hand” using the procedural hierarchies of Xfrog 3.5 / 5.0 software. All models include the editable XFR, so you can pretty much edit anything you buy if you choose to. You can get XfrogPlants in various formats : 3dsmax, Maya, LightWave, Cinema4D, modo, Vue, Terragen, MicroStation, unity, OBJ and 3DS.

You probably remember that XFrog Inc. has made available 130 free 3d plant and tree sample models from the 30 XfrogPlants libraries! Three to nine 3d plant models are included in each of the 30 species they provide (with all major formats included). You’ll find them on the Samples tab on the Xfrog site.

Here are two great visuals by fellow 3d artist and blog follower, Sergio Mereces, making use of XfrogPlants to populate his scenes.

I use Xfrog plants in all my scenes, because their huge libraries can provide me all the variation and quality models that i need for my daily work…

XfrogPlants April (and May) Sale is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Mário Nogueira follows up with one more great share of 48 Old White Wood Planks Textures that you can use in your own scenes with the help of FloorGenerator + MultiTexture maps or MightyTiles. The set has 48 JPG’s (for Diffuse, Bump and Normals) at 3607×186 pixels size, representing a plank size of 480x20cm.

48 Free Old White Wood Planks Textures is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

tresde’s Santi Sánchez has been pretty active on the forums lately, and I like the fact his work is a mix of both ‘All In Render’ and ‘Postwork Based’ workflows. He’s really good at doing both, which clearly shows in his ‘Crystal Box’ Villa project which did not get too much attention on the forums, but it will now! This one was a personal project of his, intended to take postwork for a long drive. You’ll find here a Video by Santi taking you through the process of making this image, a step by step textual and visual breakdown as well as a scaled down version of his PSD file.

Introduction

Hi all,

First, I’d like to thank to Ronen for this opportunity, is an honor for me make this little contribution for the CG community.

‘Crystal Box’ Villa was born as a personal project to deeply study post-production using just a very basic render as a starting point, and with the intention to take the post-production level to the edge. I was trying to understand the behavior of the nature and replicate it in the most accurate way I can with real physical reactions, emulating light by painting it in Photoshop. The aim was to achieve a result where I can easily modify all the possible variants in a nondestructive and flexible workflow.

The Video

I’ve recorded the process for you, as well as added step by step visuals below and the PSD file too – so you can really plunge deep and figure this out from all angles.

Step by Step

As a first step I collected some references about, landscape, mood and lighting.

After that I modeled the house using AutoCAD.

I exported the model to 3ds Max and started to create some basic materials for the walls, glass and metals.I used an HDRI lighting technique in order to have a realistic lighting simulation, and some standard lights for the interiors. V-Ray was the render engine I used for getting a very good base as a starting point. After that I just opened all my passes in Photoshop.

The fun starts now!

As a base I keep my beauty pass (rgb).

In order to add the sky and make some color correction I used some adjustments layers such as – Color Balance, Intensity, Curves, Levels, Exposure and Hue/Saturation.

In order to add textures (facade and front doors), I downloaded some images from CGtextures and blended most of them with the multiply option.

I added some passes using the screen blending mode (most of them).

Now is time to add the wood planks texture and the grass. I’ve found the easy way to make selections in order to create masks is using the object id pass.

After that it is a simply painting in stuff in the right places…

To create the forest I used some cutout trees grouped in different plains, because I change the values of exposure and luminosity according to the distance and after that I made a copy to fill almost all the horizon.

For the interiors I used some images I found online and made some color corrections in order to match the saturation and the exposure.

I added some extra trees and vegetation and matched the color using different adjustment layers.

Now it is time to add some characters to the scene.

We are almost there, just some color correction, color contrast and the interior lighting is much improved.

As final step I used Magic Bullet plugin for Photoshop (Photo Looks) and mainly decrease the saturation, as well as adding a little bit more of contrast and diffusion plus other secondary effects.

And here is the final result + PSD file to grab below (scaled down to save on file size).

Take care!

Making of ‘Crystal Box’ Villa is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

model+model released a new volume of interior accessories 3d models, with a touch of retro-chic, to help you spice up those interiors you are working on! You’ll have over 100 interior models in 40 sets ready to go with VRay & Mental Ray supporting LWF and Arch&Design Mats too.

Vol.08 Interior Accessories contains 3d models of decor objects arranged in 40 sets. All models are made with attention to details. They have a reasonable amount of polygons and accurate grid. The models are textured and are ready to use with 3dsmax VRay, Mental Ray & Scanline (They are also provided in .FBX & .OBJ formats).

To view all models and get additional information, please visit the model+model website.

You can also see a select preview here…

And this cool Geografia Paper Globe 3d model, which you can get as a sample below right now by spreading the word around!

Supported Formats:

• *.max Scanline – with textures and materials for 3ds max 2008 or higher.
• *.max V-Ray – with textures and materials (in gamma 1.0/2.2) for 3ds max 2008 and V-ray 1.5 or higher.
• *.fbx – with mapping without materials.
• *.obj – with mapping without materials.

model+model Released Vol. 08 / Interior Accessories is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Mário Nogueira Kindly shares this great set of 30 Stone Pavement Textures that you can use in your own scenes with the help of FloorGenerator + MultiTexture maps or MightyTiles. The set has 30 TIFF’s at 1425×284 pixels size, representing a tile size of 120x20cm.

Mário used these in his Zevo House scene, two images of which are shown below – with the stone visible in them…

30 Free Stone Pavement Textures is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog

Here’s the continuation to Scott Baumberger‘s Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) Approach to Architectural Visualization workflow article. This time he dives in, with great detail, into the process of making the ‘Viking Pavilion’ Exterior Dusk Image. Enjoy, and stay tuned for the next part!

This is the first of a series of renderings completed for the Viking Pavilion project on the campus of Portland State University in Oregon. The Client is ZGF Architects, also of Portland. The project is a proposed modernization / expansion of an existing student athletic center and the addition of a new 5,000 seat arena to be used for academic, athletic and community events. For this view there was already an existing rendering in place, but the building design had changed somewhat. Since we were going to do several interior and exterior renderings, it was important that all artwork felt consistent or “made by the same hand”.

Non-Photorealistic Rendering (NPR) Approach to Architectural Visualization

This article is an in-depth process breakdown of the ‘Viking Pavilion’ Exterior Dusk image following Scott’s intro to the subject of NPR – Non-Photorealistic Rendering.Make sure you read that introduction to understand what this style is all about and how Scott implements it in his daily work.

Read More…

Here is our starting point, the older version of the rendering.

My task was to soften up the overall technique, and make the project as inviting as possible while at the same time preserving the monumentality of the arena bowl. Here is a collage of some of the provided “collegiate imagery” to get a feel for the site and mood for the renderings.

As with any sports imagery, people are a big part of bringing the scene to life. We decided to keep the dusk lighting, and emphasize the “game day” approach to the building. I recommended keeping the two-point perspective but dropping the camera to a more natural eye-level position. For the composition I wanted to maintain a clear line of sight to the front doors and use foreground shadows to lead the eye towards the entrance.

The toughest part of the rendering process would end up being the transparency of the large glass surfaces. With a dusk or “blue hour” lighting setup you have more license to dial-up or down the interior lighting levels as needed. During the day, it would be much too dark inside and in a pure night lighting we would lose a lot of the exterior context.

Here is a screen shot of the SketchUP model provided by the client with a general idea of the viewpoint.

As I mentioned, the first step is to investigate alternate camera options and get the final viewpoint nailed down as quickly as possible. Here are a few early options, experimenting with camera position and lens focal lengths.

The differences are subtle, but it is critical to get the viewpoint right at this stage as all Photoshop work will be based on this perspective. Good communication is essential at the outset to ensure that all “stakeholders” in the rendering have a chance to weigh in before the camera position gets locked down for good. We proceed with the third option above.

The Render Passes

Once the viewpoint is approved, I export high-res render passes of the SketchUP model, usually at 4000 pixels wide. With glass I sometimes need to export one version with the glass surfaces fully opaque and another with them fully transparent (or just turned off) in order to create good selection sets and masks in Photoshop. It usually takes 5-6 separate passes to be able to easily isolate everything later.

Here are a few of them for this rendering…

I used this one as a pseudo-alpha channel to isolate the sky but it also gave me sharp line work to select the individual glass panels.

Here is a color-only export used for isolating most of the interior elements.

Ambient occlusion-only pass. I cut out the sky including a small portion visible through the back wall of the arena. All glass is isolated in the model and turned off.

Line work-only pass using a custom style in SketchUP, darkened a little bit here for clarity. There is some “jagginess” to the lines, which is great for simulating hand-drawn line work but bad for creating clean selections. I use a combination of the first two passes above for setting up selection sets and masks.

For this project, I used the Shaderlight render plugin directly within SketchUP. I gave the metal surfaces a slight Satin sheen but left pretty much everything else alone as default materials. I setup a couple point / omni type lights inside the bowl but hidden by the floor in this perspective. Another light is added in the middle of the lobby just out of view. Glass is still turned off.

At this point, it’s not bad… but still needs a lot of work. First thing is to composite all of the passes and set up a few of the big selections. Here’s a look at it composited and a twilight sky dropped into the background.

Next, I make gentle adjustments to some of the materials and also paint in highlights on the undersides of the interior roof trusses.

More development of the exterior surfaces, adding lights & glows. I also get a request to punch up the red tone of the interior trusses. To be consistent, I add more saturation to the purple sky visible through the back wall.

Now for the rest of the exterior…

First, I paint in the foreground leaving the grass pretty green at this stage. The walkway at the lower right is a stitch of several photos distorted to match the perspective. I’m not especially careful with it as I expect this area will be much darker in the final version.

To get the perspective correct for the neighboring buildings, I set up a quick set of guidelines for distorting the photos.

Here it is with buildings left and right along with some more plantings in the foreground.

Glass facade and the Interior

First, I set up a new layer group for the glass and apply a mask. On a new layer within the group I fill the selection with a flat color at about 40% opacity with several layer style effects for the main glass wall (even though the layer group is masked, it is important to fill in just the glass selection and not the whole canvas… many of the layer style effects occur only at the edge of the fill area and would not be visible if the entire canvas was filled). There is no “one size fits all” for this particular layer style, but the effects I used this time are Bevel & Emboss, Inner Glow, and Gradient Overlay.

The Bevel & Emboss effect are very subtle (Size = 2), but it simulates the thickness of the glass panels, catching highlights and cast shadows at the edges. Inner Glow (set to Multiply) creates a light ambient occlusion type of effect and Gradient Overlay simulates an overall light-to-dark wash, keeping the surface from getting too flat.

In this case, the upper portion of the glass would be receiving more indirect light from the inside of the bowl and than the bottom. Using layer styles is a good example of a non-destructive workflow. I can easily change (or remove) any of the layer style settings later on without any loss of work. Here’s a look at the wash and then screenshots for the layer style settings.

People Inside the Arena

For this I work back to front, building up overlapping things in perspective emphasizing scale as I go along. First, and very loosely, I paint in the large crowd already inside the bowl using a warm color scheme but also introducing a lot of green color to match the PSU colors. Then, another group is added on the floor up against the glass… this time cooled off a bit. The glass color also keeps the lower portions cool.

More people are added to the lobby and mezzanine, also in a cool color scheme.

On a new layer set to Color Dodge Blending Mode, I painted in overall glows using a very large soft brush at a low opacity going over the surface several times to build up the right look. I want to leave some areas relatively dark against the bright interior bowl.

At this point, I get a request to emphasize the horizontal bands on the backside of the green bowl and add a “running bond” joint pattern to the bands. The client also wants to see more green color in the crowd inside. To get that effect, I add a new layer just on top of the bowl crowd layer and below the perimeter crowd layer. It is set to Color Blending Mode and I paint in the green color sampled from the outside of the bowl using a small soft brush at 30% opacity.

Here is a blowup to see the effect…

The interior is now feeling good, and so I go back to the…

Exterior Foreground

There is usually a lot of jumping back and forth between the two areas… A change to one part of the image will often trigger a change somewhere else to maintain a good balance. The first step for the exterior is to cool off the foreground and paint in glows coming from the entrance. I drop in the foreground-to-transparent gradient on a new layer set to Color Blending Mode to give the bottom a blue cast. I then paint in the glows in a similar fashion to the interior on a new layer set to Color Dodge Blending Mode. Mixing blue/purples with yellow/oranges creates a nice vitality, in keeping with lively sports theme.

Next, I turned on the “Viking Pavilion” sign with a custom layer style. A combination of Bevel & Emboss, Gradient Overlay and Stroke create a back-lit effect. The layer is set to Normal Blending Mode, but at 70% opacity to help blend in. I also erase a few areas of the sign where the plants are in front, destructively in this case. I was reasonably confident there won’t be a change and the consequence of recreating the text is relatively low. If I expected a change to this area, I could have masked it out instead. Either way is fine, just make the best judgement you can and keep moving!

Existing lamp posts are added with the Portland State University logo. I took some license with their placement so they do not cover up any important features. I also change the color of the banners as they are around campus but alter the palette somewhat so they are in harmony with the rest of the scene. So the banner at the left picks up the red of the wood screen just to the left, and the banner at right is a medium blue color sampled from the building at the right edge.

Take great care with the coloration of photographic elements to make them feel like they are part of the scene. In this case I reduced the saturation of the green pole to almost zero and then brought back just the colors that I wanted so the green of the pole wouldn’t clash with the green in the interior. These two colors are adjacent in the perspective so their hues almost exactly match in the rendering.

Here is the original photograph of one of the existing lamp posts…

Next, I add in people and trees, experimenting quite a bit with the opacity levels to avoid overpowering the arena interior. The large right tree is placed exactly on top of the “A” in “Pavilion” so that the sign would still read as well as possible. Knowing that the rendering will be presented to a large audience, the legibility of this sign is especially important.

More cast shadows on the ground from the people are added, along with glows at the lamp posts and a foreground shrub to cover up the seam in the sidewalk at the right edge.

I’m almost done with the image, so I add paper textures and washes to frame the subject. The wash at the lower right is especially heavy to help sell the image as a nighttime / dusk shot. Without it, the scene could almost be daytime.

We’re all done…

except for a late request to get more glows on the roof trusses. Here’s the final version…

And a few blow-ups at 100% to give you a feel for the technique.

Thanks for taking the time to read the article, I hope you will find it helpful to your work. Soon, I hope to cover one or two of the interior renderings for this project as well in a separate article.

Scott.

Making of ‘Viking Pavilion’ NPR Dusk Exterior is a post from Ronen Bekerman's 3D Architectural Visualization Blog