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How did you get into ArchVIZ? Please share your story.


peterlatrofa
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When I was in grade school I was always drawing, drawing, drawing. I'd always be in charge of the Thanksgiving mural that went on a large roll of brown paper the length of the room.

 

Once you start working people see your skill and yank you away from construction docs to do renderings.

 

Eventually I got a job with a rendering studio and went out on my own when I saw I could make more $$$.

 

pros - I get paid to have fun! Learning techniques and watching yourself get better. Dealing with clients, architects, designers - other creative people - except for the occasional rotten apple.

 

cons - the lean times when you sink into an oozing black depression because work isn't coming in. It's not to0 often that it gets

to that point.

 

Love what I do - only other thing that would be better maybe would be a rock star.

Edited by heni30
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I like this thread already!

 

I was into 3d work about 17 years ago and I used to build my own computers to render and animate with. I initially wanted to get into it and tried it out a bit in high school, but I kind of gave up on it when I couldn't really determine what kind of job it entailed; 3d modelling for games, animation for movies etc...

 

I went to art school and got my BFA (Bachelor of **** All), worked construction after because that's what you do with a Fine Arts degree in Canada... then eventually went on to do an undergrad and then masters in architecture. I'm a registered intern now and work full-time for a firm in Vancouver. I did some renderings for my thesis and really got into it and now I'm the render guy at work. It kind of came full-circle and I'm loving my position!

 

I like having to constantly push my abilities continue to learn and grow as an artist. It fulfils my creative and tech-nerd needs while still allowing me to participate in the architectural process. For me, it's kind of the best thing of both worlds. Apply my passion to my education and vice versa, it's a dream!

 

I haven't been in it long enough to have any real dislikes. It can be incredibly frustrating trying to optimize a scene and it just doesn't work... tiny change - render, tiny change - render, tiny change - render... POOF there goes 6 hours. Maybe I'll get more efficient one day, but I'm a perfectionist and it's impossible for me to say "good enough". I'm sure bad clients would put a damper on things, but they're probably the minority of clients you might have.

 

I can definitely connect the dots backwards though, this is a perfect fit for me.

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I like this thread already!

 

I was into 3d work about 17 years ago and I used to build my own computers to render and animate with. I initially wanted to get into it and tried it out a bit in high school, but I kind of gave up on it when I couldn't really determine what kind of job it entailed; 3d modelling for games, animation for movies etc...

 

I went to art school and got my BFA (Bachelor of **** All), worked construction after because that's what you do with a Fine Arts degree in Canada... then eventually went on to do an undergrad and then masters in architecture. I'm a registered intern now and work full-time for a firm in Vancouver. I did some renderings for my thesis and really got into it and now I'm the render guy at work. It kind of came full-circle and I'm loving my position!

 

I like having to constantly push my abilities continue to learn and grow as an artist. It fulfils my creative and tech-nerd needs while still allowing me to participate in the architectural process. For me, it's kind of the best thing of both worlds. Apply my passion to my education and vice versa, it's a dream!

 

I haven't been in it long enough to have any real dislikes. It can be incredibly frustrating trying to optimize a scene and it just doesn't work... tiny change - render, tiny change - render, tiny change - render... POOF there goes 6 hours. Maybe I'll get more efficient one day, but I'm a perfectionist and it's impossible for me to say "good enough". I'm sure bad clients would put a damper on things, but they're probably the minority of clients you might have.

 

I can definitely connect the dots backwards though, this is a perfect fit for me.

Ryan, how long have you been working at your firm? And how long have you been the rendering guy for them?

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Long time ago in a galaxy far far away... I used to be a Industrial designer student at the University, I found this old school friend that was working on the computer dep. of the university and he was installing AutoCAD, Alias, and 3d Max DOS.. remember that one?? :) :) :)

He showed me some sample that he did on 3D Studio and I was so impressed, that I start learning from there, jumping in to the future, after not finding Job as Industrial design I meet this Architect that was implementing computer generated rendering in his company, he used to do everything by hand and hair brush, his work was incredible, but he told me people was more interested on "3D stuff" since I knew some 3d Max 2.0 by then, I start to work with him, I learned a lot from him, his Photoshop work was great too so we did like 40% in 3D then everything else in Photoshop.

 

From there on I have been doing this, sometimes freelancer sometimes at some Architectural firm, a few years I had a break when I wanted to be a rock start LOL (Hello George ;) but over all it been a great ride for me.

 

What I have learned from all these years is the artistic basics still apply, no matter what software you use, if you don't understand the basic of composition, color, and understand Architecture, it is really hard to do good images.

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Long time ago in a galaxy far far away... I used to be a Industrial designer student at the University, I found this old school friend that was working on the computer dep. of the university and he was installing AutoCAD, Alias, and 3d Max DOS.. remember that one?? :) :) :)

He showed me some sample that he did on 3D Studio and I was so impressed, that I start learning from there, jumping in to the future, after not finding Job as Industrial design I meet this Architect that was implementing computer generated rendering in his company, he used to do everything by hand and hair brush, his work was incredible, but he told me people was more interested on "3D stuff" since I knew some 3d Max 2.0 by then, I start to work with him, I learned a lot from him, his Photoshop work was great too so we did like 40% in 3D then everything else in Photoshop.

 

From there on I have been doing this, sometimes freelancer sometimes at some Architectural firm, a few years I had a break when I wanted to be a rock start LOL (Hello George ;) but over all it been a great ride for me.

 

What I have learned from all these years is the artistic basics still apply, no matter what software you use, if you don't understand the basic of composition, color, and understand Architecture, it is really hard to do good images.

 

Sounds like you've been in the industry for a while now. What year did you start? Sounds like maybe you started out in the late 90's?

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Although there are others that trump me in length of time in the industry (I think I know most of them), we are hitting our 20 anniversary this year (here at Neoscape). My first taste of 3d was FormZ in college back in 91', we took Autocad (7?? maybe) and started working with Photoshop 1.

 

I can remember at my first job when Photoshop got "Layers" (version 2.5) up until then you painted on a flat canvas, and used saved selections (alpha masks) and "Paste into" and the "Blend if" features all the time. Back then we were working on 486's with 32 megs of RAM, running DOS. There were tools older than 3d studio and Photoshop, the predecessor was a 3d Program called "Topaz" a paint program called "Tips" and a presentation and illustration program called "Rio" all from AT&T software, each one costs 5 figures, and you needed special video cards to run them, (Vista boards) that cost more than any desktop computer you can buy today. I am sure that the processing power of those computers is eclipsed by pocket calculators these days.

 

There was no zoom tool in "Tips" you had to use the Hardware Zoom that was built into the video card (acccessed through an F key on the keyboard), Which meant that as you zoomed, your cursor got big along with everything else, you also couldn't work on a file larger than the resolution of your screen (at least at once) you could "Proxy" part of a larger image and work on 1024x768 at a time (this was the max resolution at the time). All this plus working on old CRT monitors. The good old days of the early 90's were not so good.

 

Suffice to say that the tools have gotten so much better, it is really night and day, there were artists that could make beautiful images back in those old tools, on very slow computers with little resources.

 

As to how I actually got started, I learned some computer skills in Architecture school and then got a job at Parsons Brinckerhoff (our group was called "4d Imaging" later they called themselves "Company 39" now they are called "Project Visualization"). My 2 partners and I left in 95' and started Neoscape, from there is a whole other story.

 

-Nils Norgren

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In the mid-90s, I was doing cad work as an engineering apprentice at a small manufacturing company outside of Chicago. I remember working late one night trying to clean up some AutoCad drawings for a presentation the next day, and somehow I extruded one of the mechanical components. One thing led to another and I stayed even later to make some 3D ortho views as additional images for the presentation. That was well received by my boss and the client, so I started doing more of that type of work.

 

Then, in 1996, someone from Autodesk demoed 3d Studio Max v1.0 at the community college I was attending. I was smitten and got the demo to play around with. I showed a couple of things to my boss and somehow convinced him to buy a license. I still remember the big blue/purple box with the Kinetix logo. I did renderings of manufacturing equipment for a while on a dual Pentium II 400MHz machine with 256MB of RAM. Ha. I remember having to scrape a capacitor off the motherboard and solder a short across the contacts to get the USB port working.

 

I stopped doing 3D for a couple of years while I realigned my life priorities (switched jobs, started dating my future wife, that sort of thing). Moved to the east coast to be closer to my fiance's family, and started looking for a job at an A/E firm. I really enjoy the technical aspects of engineering, but wanted to keep up with the art of graphics, and architecture always seemed like a good mesh of the two. In 2007, got hired as a graphic designer at an A/E firm. I found out they had a copy of Autodesk Viz collecting dust so I think I bribed someone in IT to install it on my machine.

 

Over time, I started doing more 3D and less 2D work, to the point where we hired another graphic designer to cover the workload. I still pitch in with 2D work when needed, but 3D is my bread and butter here.

 

Pros: Wide variety of interesting projects. Stable, steady work. A certain pride in being able to wow people with a picture and a personal pride in creating something aesthetic. I get a similar feeling from playing the piano.

 

Cons: The short deadlines can be stressful. I'm the only dedicated 3D artist in the company, so there isn't anyone to bounce ideas/problems off of. There are a few architects picking up Sketchup/Revit for quick 3D work, but nobody's picked up 3ds Max yet.

 

Best job I ever had.

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Best job I ever had.

 

Best job I ever had...

 

Yes for me was mid or late 90's I remember I was 17 we all have to run to the computer lab to get the "best" computer, the one with 256 RAM ha ha ha ha with Turbo :p

 

 

Hey Nils I am from Chile, and when all this "3d stuff" start to snug in to architecture a lot of people was just impressed with anything that you show them. (not much any more) here in USA was the same by then?

For us(South America) was like, "this is incredible everything look so good", then after a while, they start giving you input, few years a head, they want to manipulate everything, nowadays is like how fast can you do it, and how cheap...

a few client still appreciate the craft, most of them just want it now.

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Nothing epic behind me. From early offset of architectural studies I realized making digital imagery felt more satisfying than the design process, and that I might just be, far better "illustrator/whatever it could be called" than designer, and far less than true architect, overseeing long and complicated projects involving many tedious tasks, of which only fraction could be called 'creative'.

 

In second year I realized I might just as well not waste any more time waiting for something I couldn't be and jump straight into work. Took a loan, bought my first own workstation (I do 3D for 4 years, so it wasn't 486 but i7, oh well...), left school, to big disappointment of family finally some black sheep who can't even finish college like a proper citizen, got hired by scumbag studio, got kicked out a week later, loosing my first and last job in life.

 

And then everything just progressively got better and better. I had no ambition of anything when I left school, no plan of any sort, just really wanted to start doing something right away, waiting for future had filled me with obscene amount of inner anxiety since high school. The abstract fear of some eventual failure. That never happened.

 

Now what I really like most about the job, is the mutual connection you do with clients. It can get complicated even at best cases, but it's still deeply satisfying experience, and when you outside of creating visually good image also help convey the right message of your client and help him, it's that much better. It gives the rather arbitrary and fast-forward work a purpose. And you switch that quite often, moving through many interesting projects and relationships within a year by year.

Which is why I firmly stand against any outsourcing. Only meaningful and satisfying work is the one you do directly with your end client, 'one on one' (not literally, swap to your studio and his team and any possible combination). Don't be a tech monkey, slave to process. It's not about making just pictures.

 

First con coming to mind would be stress, but I am wary of making that connection to discipline, as it's far often (esp. in my case) a personal self-imposed issue stemming from failure to manage properly all resources. And in this age, the stress is far too widespread across any industry and demographic.

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Hey Nils I am from Chile, and when all this "3d stuff" start to snug in to architecture a lot of people was just impressed with anything that you show them. (not much any more) here in USA was the same by then?

For us(South America) was like, "this is incredible everything look so good", then after a while, they start giving you input, few years a head, they want to manipulate everything, nowadays is like how fast can you do it, and how cheap...

a few client still appreciate the craft, most of them just want it now.

 

Things were/are much the same here in the USA, we had it even better, because we worked for civil engineers, who were impressed so easily, (and still are BTW) that it didn't take much to seem like a wizard. I have found that Architects have always been a tougher group, which is a good thing as they push harder and demand much better results.

 

Just to further illustrate how much of an old curmudgeon I am, When I was a kid we always had computers around, like this one:

http://oldcomputers.net/appleii.html

 

Our first real computer, that wasn't borrowed or my father's work, that my family bought new, was this one:

http://oldcomputers.net/macintosh.html with 512k RAM, I did pixel by pixel 1bit drawings for hours.

 

My Mother was totally against it, thinking $2,500 for a fancy typewriter was outrageous. It was the first computer with a GUI, the tutorials came on cassette tape, you had to listen to and follow along to learn the interface, there was no internal Hard Drive, you needed to swap out the floppy discs for the system and the application you were using at the time.

 

-Nils

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I'll trump your 486 with a 386 with 8 mb RAM. Also started using 3DS DOS , what a great program. When I eventually upgraded to a 486 I was in heaven. In those days you either had to take out a mortgage to buy a house or a new computer.

 

I started out doing a graphic design course that wasn't worth the paper. Then did a 3 month multimedia course , the first of its kind in South Africa at the time. Got introduced to Strata Studio Pro and got hooked. I didn't even know that archviz existed. Just happened that my first job as in an architectural practice to setup their 3D department.

 

almost 20 years later I am still dealing with the same issues when I started, cant get a render out fast enough :)

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I'm old. The first 3D program I ever got was a fractal terrain generator called VistaPro. I was amazed at the time how the mesh forms subdivided until you had a relatively detailed mountain range. Next I got hold of AutoCAD Release 2.9 for DOS which actually ran of a single 7.5" floppy. It took two hours at the time to generate an unshaded hidden line view of St.Pauls Cathedral. This ran of a 286 PC with a special maths co-processor (required to run AutoCAD). Later I acquired 3D Studio 2.0 for DOS. Being a cracked copy it had a booby trap where your model would "explode" by moving the vertices outward randomly after a half hour or so. In spite of that, the software was exciting enough to get my interest. Still going....

 

The best thing about my job is bringing a design to life from a 2D drawing. The worst is dealing with client and designer changes over and over, and having someone promise a delivery date on your behalf. Having patience and communication skills in architecture is a great asset.

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when i was young and computers were first entering the home, graphics always interested me. i played with light pens, koala pads, paint programs and lots of video games. i didn't do much again until i bought my first computer and played with photoshop and similar programs... then digital photography with an old kodak. pixar demo material always interested me and that led to pov-ray. one day i was looking at 3ds max and was shocked to find there was a local dealer in my tiny midwest town! i got a demo version of max 5, took some classes from him and a fellow named ted boardman, which led to this forum and more learning... next was online training from a production studio which really put everything together for me. finally a custom 1 day class from another forum member, 3DAS, to focus on the architectural side and that was exactly what i needed!

 

sometime before the formal training and after the ted boardman training, i did a project for my brother in law who's in commercial real estate and showed him a DVD of a flyby on a project he was working on. he said "this far exceed my expectations" so i figured i was on to something. he told me about a couple of architects and construction companies who i sent still renders to and i did part time for them about 2 years.

 

after 12 years in a cube doing computer support and programming, i asked one of the companies if they would hire me full time and they did! 3 years later, an architectural firm approached me and now i'm trying to keep my head above water while trying to get better! i am no master that's for sure! not even close, so i'm trying to learn ways to get better as much as i can! it goes in spurts :)

 

edit: i have to thank many people along the way, one though is mom for having gotten me the light pen, the koala pad and encouraging my interest in computer graphics when, through no fault of their own, everyone thought computers were for storing recipes.

Edited by SgWRX
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