rendering residential elevations using dwg files in photoshop

[berkshirebuild]

I work for a california residential design/build firm and have been producing architectual plans via autocad arch desktop 2000. I have recently been asked to produce renderings for our brochures. The only programs I have are photoshop7 and illustrator7 and I am not familiar with either. I am exited to learn but I dont even know where to begin. The only thing I have managed to do is cut and paste my elevations.dwg to a layer in illustrator, save it and then open it in photoshop. I want to add a blue sky add color to the roof, trees and grass textures. I know I need to take a class, but can anybody help me get started. Does anyone have any advice??? Techniques??? Anything will help?? Everyone Please!!!

 

Thanks James

[TheAllusionisst]

With most paint programs the first step is to get your drawings in with their lineweights intact. This can be done in some programs like CorelDraw with the DXF import and then using layers set up the line weights. Another option which I use now is to set up a postscript printer/plotter and plot to file, you end up with an EPS file that has the line weights and can be used in your paint program. You can also apply a hand drawn effect to your drawing prior to plotting to file via autolisp routines like "Freehand" which needs to be done to a copy of your drawing since once you exit AutoCAD it is un-reversable. Then plot out to an EPS file and you have a hand drawn looking document.

 

Now at this point I use the paint bucket tool found in most paint programs to flood fill an area and fill in all the areas in the appropriate color/texture. If you have hatches like bricks or reveals make them a shade of gray so that when using the flood fill you can set the tolerances so that they will ignore the gray shaded hatch (no one wants to fill in one brick at a time! LOL) and stop at black lines. Another key in most programs is to use the selection rectangle box to select an area to work on, this eliminates the program from searching for boundries within the whole drawing and only within the selection area, make sure it covers the whole area you want filled, this speeds up the process tremendously.

 

This post does not cover setting up your paint tool to flood fill a bitmapped image such as a sky or concrete instead of a solid color, experiment and find what works best for you.

 

After wards if you want a humanistic touch, use paintbrush tools to add highlights, marker type affects and smudging of distant objects to really add some nice touches. You can also add entourage like people and automobiles. This technique seems only to work on the layer that your line drawing is on, which is a drawback, if anyone knows how to flood fill on another layer, I would love to hear it, I am not a photoshop guru and get by as best I can.

 

Last but not least is the ability to modify your image with filters that can make it look like it was painted or sketched in addition to edge treatments. Don't expect just one filter to do everything you want, play with it until you find the effect you want and memorize what filter you used and in what order. Try to stay away from affects you see all the time, sure a lens flare is cool, but it is old and wore out.

 

The main hint I can give you during the process is to save your work in a numbered or narrative fashion so that you can go back to a stage that everything was right and if a client ask for something different like a change in brick color, you don't have to start all over, sometimes getting a good flood fill over an existing color/texture gets artifacts and is not clean.

 

This technique isn't as impressive as a true 3D rendering in my opinion, but if you have a 3D model in CAD you can set a camera perspective and use the snapshot tool in ADT to get a 3D facsimile prior to plotting out to EPS and then render it in 2D, which usually looks better than straight on elevations.

 

Here is a link to the only example I have online, it is not a good piece, just a quick study for a client proposal early in the design phase, not an example of how well the technique can work: http://www.3dallusions.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=159

 

Good luck, I hope this helps a little, show us what you come up with!

[berkshirebuild]

My skill level is very basic. How do you do autolisp routines? I think I got the rest and I am giong to spend the morning experimenting.

 

 

Thanks for the help

James

[TheAllusionisst]

Autolisp are little plugins/macros that enhance autocad. They are available at a lot of sites, I am not at work so I don't have all my links, but a quick search found this site that has the macro I discussed for download.

 

http://www.cadalot.co.uk/icad/download.htm

 

The following forum thread list a lot of sites with CAD enhancements such as AutoLisp routines:

 

http://www.3dallusions.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20

 

Load it into your AutoCAD or ADT 'Support' directory and then run appload and select it, you can put it in the suitcase so it will load all the time. after that is done type in the name of the AutoLisp routine (i.e. "freehand") and follow the online prompts.

 

Good luck

[bigcahunak]

You dont even need Ilustrator

Set a bitmap ploter in acad, and print to any raster format. Now just paint and texture in photoshop.

scottonstott.com has a great video just on that. buy the first 2 CDs (essentials and plans and elevations) and you wont regreet it.

[David Barbarash]

In order to fill to a layer different than the one that the CAD lines are on in Photoshop 7.0, choose the paint bucket tool (it will also work for any other painting tool, but as this is the topic in question....) and look to the top of the screen where the tool info bar is. The furthest checkbox to the right is the "All Layers" checkbox. Check this on and fill to your hearts content on whatever layer you like as it will use boundary information from all visible layers; stress the word VISIBLE! On another note, I do not personally reccomend using the paint bucket... ever. Too much doing and undoing. Use the magic wand for quick selections, keeping close watch on your tolerence settings (which control the amount of area selected based on color values) and then clean them up using the lasso and marqee tools. Then use the fill command under the edit menu (which works the same as the bucket, but with quicker options IMHO) Otherwise, you may have mistakenly left a small gap in an area to be filled and you end up with color in places you don't want it. Don't forget to make use of the gradient tool as well as general color filling, especially for skies. Color is rarely, if ever, a sold wash accross a surface. Enjoy and don't be afraid to post, we'll be kind... mostly...

 

David Barbarash

[berkshirebuild]

That freehand thing is pretty darn cool do you guys have any other sources forneat lsps or what I really could use is a good catalog of hatches for adt

Im having a problem finding a stone veneer that looks good. I have searched the net and have not found to much but I could be looking in the wrong places.

 

Thanks for all the great advice

james

[TheAllusionisst]

David,

Thanks for the PhotoShop Tips & Tricks, much appreciated, I will try them out!

[TheAllusionisst]

Berkshirebuild,

I included a forum thread with some links earlier. There should be some hatch pattern files at some of the sites, you will need to cut and paste the information into a hatch file. Don't get to carried away with the hatches, they slow down ADT when loading if you have a ton of them. "Cultured Stone" has a CD with stone patterns also, go to their site and request the CD.

 

Good Luck!