Yama

Hi Douglas, here a project I did complete without any 3D: http://forum.vrayforc4d.com/threads/arch-viz-without-any-3d-rendering.15156/ and here another one, still 3D but sketchy stile: http://www.cgarchitect.com/2011/09/gwjarchitektur-september-30-2011 hope that helps greets Yama

I don't know, to me it all still looks like a bad computer game, sorry. Compared to U4 wich comes now at 20$ per month it looks pretty boring. And for that I should spend 4000 $? No thank you..... I agree that it takes its time to get into U4 or Unity, but hey quality always comes with a price and effort. The one-click-make-it-awesome-button will always be an illusion imo. Vray was not easy to get into it too, but its worth the effort. If you want fast and good animations you'd rather go with sketch and toon or something like that. Good 3D does not come fast and cheap, unless you want it to look fast and cheap.

You can't compare Unreal 3 to Unreal 4. In unreal 3 you where lost woithout any C++ program skills. U4 is total different. You don't need program skills anymore. It's all visual. This is what the glass Shader looks in U4: Imo it is not harder or more complicated than a good realistic vray shader. But hey, nobody is forced tu use it, I just think its awesome, and you can easily safe HI-Res Images with it too, no problem......

I have U4 and this demo scene running on my PC right now...... In the beginning it was a bit of a pain in the butt, since I just could not find a way to export and import meshes properly from Cinema 4D. But after a lot of swearing and googling, I found a way to do it, and now it works.... So far I am quite stoked, it feels like Archviz in real time. You can change and apply materials and colors, without hitting any renderbutton and waiting. I think for architects, especially in the concept phase, it can be a powerfull tool, since you can walk through your rooms try different things and really "feel" it. As we all know, you can cheat a lot in an image with the camera angle and lense. If you walk trough it is another game...... I don't think it will replace common Archviz, but it will become a powerfull addition to it......

"So to summarize my (too long) post, there is no point in having an "Artist" created, nice looking image if the project specific details are wrong just because the "Artist" had to be too cool for his client." Second that. Of course there is an other extreme side, so called "artists" who are not realizing that they are doing a job and not a self expression. Personally I would never consider any of my work "art". To me it is design. Or advertising. (But lets not get into a "what is art and what not discussion here please, that would be enough to start another thread) BUT I like those images bi MIR not because I consider them art (which to me none of any arch-viz is) but great designed advertising. Be realilstic folks, what we do is sell or explain an architects idea. Thats all. No van gogh or cezanne, we are just advertisers. But the best way to sell something is to create an interesting, good looking image, that makes people go "wow". And thats what I ment with too many people talking into a picture. Meanwhile I am convinced that it is impossible to create an image like that with ten poeple talking into it, specially if these people have no clue about design or visual communication. And heres another problem I often see: Many architects used to do their visualizations by themself, before they turned their viz to get done by a professional illustrator, and therefore they think they have a lot of knowloedge about creating illustrations and images. Sorry guys, you don't. That's why you are architects and not illustrators. On the other hand an illustrator is not an architect and therefore has no idea about architecture. So an architect talking about how an image should look is a bit like an illustrator talking about how the building should be. And that's when problems get created. So as long as both sides realize where they stand and are not trying to tell the other one how he or she should do their job, a great image can be created with best inputs from both sides. Thats my experience and opinion. A god input is fine and can come from anyone. But its a difference between an input and telling someone how to do his job. So thats what I like again about the MIR statement. Basicly they say: let us do our job and you get nice results like this.

I like this statement by MIR very much. I think it proofs the point that if you want to make outstanding images like them, you have to have a strict policy about the process of your renderings and how much you let people talk into your design. Specially point two caught my interest: "2.Unforced process All our best work has started with the freedom to explore and invent. The industry standard of ordering specific viewpoints with mood references does not take into account the interdependence of lighting, composition and color." I think this is crucial for good renderings. I am pretty glad they made a statement like this, because now I can show their work to the customer and say: "Look at this it's nice isn't it? Well then, take a look at their policies and how they work, I think they may have a point here, if they can produce results like this without getting fixed viewpoints and mood references before they even start their work." To Harrys statement: "If the Investor wants green trees and not autumn orange then he will get green trees." Yes maybe, but if you let the investor make decisions like this, you will most likely not end up with images like MIR have. Because a change from autumn orange trees to green trees can mess the whole image up in some cases. And thats when you end up in images whrer everybody has his favorite color in it, but nothing fits together. Its like cooking a meal, where everybody can throw their favorite ingredience in. In most cases it wont taste good in the end.

I can totally confirm Mariu's view there. Working for over 3 Years in the business of architecture I also often get the impression that there is a big tendency to copy paste designs and styles instead of creating something new. And not only in architecture, in visualization too. I often get asked: "Look here's a picture we found on the internet, we want our visualization too look like this." What they don't see imo is that every project needs a different approach. If you want to just copy the style and mood and technique from one viz of one project to another project, it will mostly go wrong, because, guess what, it's not the same project! So I try really hard to convince clients not to give me reference images and having a fix idea right from the start, but to look at every project different and try to find an unique and custom solution. So yes, I think it is true, that photorealism took out a lot of soul and most photorealistic images are really boring, because they look just like, well, boring photos. But its the same with photography either, it's a long proces from pushing the button to a final breathtaking architecture Photo, and between there is a lot of postwork involved, as it is in great renderings. my two cents on that

Hi folks, I just had a little talk about how too many people beeing involved in the creative process of your visualization can ruin a good image in the end. So I was wondering how you guys deal with this issue. I am talking about the situation where I am doing a visualization and in the middle of the process I have about two or three architects plus the investor and two of his partners discussing about the image, adding wishes, correcting and changing stuff and in the end it feels like having a patchwork image where everyones wish is considered but nothing fits together. And when I look at the images that I consider to be my best, I realized that all of them where made by just leaving me alone and letting me do my job and not more than one person discussing the image with me. So is it just me, or is it generally bad if you have too much people adding their wishes into an image? I just remember the saying that people always want to get what they ask for, but if you give them exactly what said they wanted, they are not happy. So yeah I was just wondering about your thoughts on that..... greets Yama

Dear all, dear Jeff, I am sorry to bring this up again, but I am just getting sick of this! There must be rule that members can only post a certain amount of pictures per day. (like3 or 4) I mean, really there was someone posting 38 (!) images after each other, so he basicly owned two pages of the Gallery! It just sucks when you post an image, only to see the next day that it is no where anymore because somebody decided to flood two pages with his stuff. Does'nt seem fair to me..... or am I the only one? It's just stuff like this that makes me wonna leave this place and poste my stuff somewehre else......sorry.... Yama

If you believe Cinema 4d Render settings, then the optimal solution for an A1 would be 9933.071 x 7015.45 Pixels at 300 dpi. If you have the time to render it, do it. If you dont', you have several options: 1. Render half (or less) size at 300 and then double it up in Photoshop (with the interpolation method for enlarge) 2. Render full size but with only 72 dpi. 3. Render half size (or less) with only 72 dpi (the fastest but I would not recommend it) Based on my experience you DO see the difference between 300 and 72 dpi. But it depends on how close you go and how much details you want poeple to see on your poster. The HDMI solution I would NOT recommend, unless people will only see it from a far distance. Pixels is mostly not the problem, since when you enlarge it to the right size in Photoshop, the worst thing that could happen is that it will get blurred. So yeah, thats what I can tell you from my work experience...

nice! I think this will help a lot...

Speaking of changes: There MUST be an easier way to post several images in one thread since no one seems to get it. Sometimes you have 6 images from the same project posted as 6 individual threads. (For example Mausoleum part 1, part 2, part 4 etc.) This flood of images imo leads to less conversation. And yeah i think the "hot" threads neet to be on top or at least they should be next to the regulars in a little box. Generally I think you must find a way to get people back into writing and not looking, because that's what makes it interesting. If people post shitty work and get bad critics, they will think twice before posting something cheap. Since no one writes anymore, people are not afraid to post the worst cheap sketch up models they made in an hour and call it archviz (I know with enough skills you can make great images even with sketch up, but you get what I mean) When I look at other forums like Bekerman's or Evermotion, the quality is just way higher than on cgarchitect and that fact should make you think...... I would like to see more good work like in these forums on cgarchitect than cheap bad quality renderings. And i bet you would too. I don't wonna give a bad mouth here, it's just sad that I have to go to other forums ot get something I used to have here.

I don't know what it is, but since the layout changed, imo it got worse and not better. Don't know why, but people don't comment anymore and if they do it is not very usefull. What happend to "Why don't you try to adjust XY, I would put XY there etc." ? Is it because of the massive flood of images? Or is it a general issue in the community? I have the feeling that when it still was a forum and not a gallery, people put there work to get help or tipps. Now since it is a gallery, people put their work just to be seen/noticed/promoted. And for that I simply just have no interest. I am not an architect looking for a visualization office. I am a visualizer looking for inspiration, tipps and tricks. It used to work for me when people used to discuss about someones work. Imo it is not cg architects job to promote you. Appearantly some people take it as an easy opportunity to get promoted without doing much themselves for it. If you want to get promoted, build your own website or facebook page! The gallery is the wrong place to do it. Or is it? I don't know what the basic idea was behind the "Gallery" System, if it was to make people discuss and interact then it went wrong, because to me, the opposite is the case. And I am not saying this to mess with anyone, I am saying it because I really loved this forum and I am kinda sad about what it turned into. (Even though the news section is great!)

I am sorry but Juraj has a point. May his form of language not be the most diplomatic, but given the fact that George asked for what to do in a short time, I thought his idea about hand drawing the whole thing instead of photoshoping or re rendering it quite good. Unless George has no skills in handdrawing then it gets difficult. And Yes the Startup renders from pixalflake are WAY better than Georges (no offence here, George), so you can't realy compare thath. Plus Pixelflake is a huge pro which makes images like the ones above in 4 (!) hours. I could work a whole day and yould not get to what he achieves. It is true that even with this rendering from George you could do a lot in Photoshop, but if you are not an expert in Photoshop, there is no way you gonna make it in short time. My advice would be to go for a sketch style, as simple as possible. You better have not much stuff in your Picture, but this stuff is good quality, than a lot of details but all in bad quality. I liked the tipp from Salvador, I would go in a direction like this...... so far from my side Greets and be nice to each other Yama

Two thoughts: First, I have to say that a huge part of my knowledge I got for free from friends and/or people throught the www. This is fact, and therefore I feel that it's only fair if I share my knowledge too. On the other hand: It's true that the competition with "overseas" aka Asia, got tougher trough the years. First I was not concerned, because their quality was imo not that good. But nowadays they start to get better and better, but for prices I (coming from Europe) can not compete with. So this is scary, because I am afraid that there will be the day, somone will tell me that he can get the same or (worse) even better quality with a much lower price. So that scares me. But: This process is going on and we surely won't stop it by NOT giving any knowledge away. We can only slow it down a bit maybe...... So to me the answer is yes, you should give your knowledge away for free, especially when you benefit from other people doing it. You don't have to give away your deepest secrets, but some sharing is always nice. According to the situation with cheap Asia, I don't really have a solution for it, I wonder what you think about it.......