Homes Rendered in Photoshop - WIP

[The Drew]

Hi all!

 

I have a series of 6 homes for a subdivision for my builder that I have to render. They're all going in this round table thing, so they all look more or less the same, so I'll spare the rest. This is the latest one, and I think they are turning out rather swanky.

 

They are all done from the architectural elevations from AutoCAD, so yes, they are flat. As a flitter (whatever that is). But.. I guess thats the challenge of this. I have to make it look appealing. So, in your opinion, how do these look? I've only been seriously doing these for about 2 months, so go easy ;-)

 

I'm looking into getting the company to get 3dsMax for me, so that perhaps it will help me get 3d models from AutoCAD in some shape, form or fashion. But for now, its Photoshop all the way!

 

BTW - these look 500% better than what they had. Also *these are being printed on opaque film so they can be back-lit (I guess they are semi-transparent, so you get the jest).*

[puciorek]

I think it has to do a lot of with the lighting-shadows and shading.

This is the latest one I have produced.

I have been doing these for almost 2 years and there is still a lot to learn.

[hardnozehockey]

Why not try some 3d work instead of just (what seems to be) Photoshop work? There are some amazing things you can do with 3D and lighting. I've seen too many of these and they all look the same. Why not suggest some new stuff to the builder... it will help with their marketing.

[The Drew]

I agree, I'd like to try to work on these in 3d... I'm attempting to learn enough about 3dsMax to be able to work out some 'demo images' if you will, to see if I can convince my employer to take the plunge. I think it would really spice up the marketing too!

 

And yeah, doing these on flat images has about 90% to do with lighting/shadowing. Getting the colors and textures and all that jive isn't too hard, its getting the lighting to get the correct concept of depth that is the hard part.

 

Drew

[Eric]

I'd suggest you try to work on your shadows. You can take a flat elevation and simply add layers of gradations of black/transparent or white/transparent layers with different blending modes to enhance the lighting effect. There is no correct way to simulate the lighting - it's an artistic rendering.

 

This is the latest of a round of images I'm working on for a client. I had much more landscaping in the foreground, but the client requested I remove most of the landscaping because he didn't want to portray anything that wasn't actually provided. So, we left some, and remove a bunch more. Looks okay, but I have 18 of these to do, and no time to work on them because of my project load.

[Eric]

Oh, I actually have about 4 layers devoted only to shadows. One is just a black layer for the sun shadow with an opacity of 40%. Then I have gradient layers of black for the "radiosity" look, and a white layer for the same thing, and then I have a layer that kind of boosts the saturation in the shade to counteract the black layers mentioned above.

 

Here is a few that I did about a year ago for a previous version of these renderings.