Tips on material references?

[mrstardust]

Hi,

 

i´m still not sure if i actually wanna become an ArchViz pro or if i wanna specialize in a different field, but for now i wanna finish some architectural projects i already started.

Since i don´t have an architectural background, i´d love some tips on where i can gather general information on architectural materials: what they´re called, what they look like etc...

I mostly work with reference pictures from archdaily.com, and i´m finding it hard to look for textures, if i have no idea what the material is called...

 

I´d prefer online resources, but i´d also take advice on books.

[Brodie Geers]

Good question. I suspect knowing the parts and pieces could be helpful to someone in your position as well. For example, for extra realism it might be helpful to model the "coping" along the top of the building with rounded corners in the right places and maybe even seems along it's length, but you'd need to know that it's called "coping" to find a good section of it and description.

 

I'm afraid I haven't much help for you towards your question though. In my head, it seems like most building materials would be common knowledge (brick, concrete, drywall, glass, aluminum, etc.) so it'd be interesting to see an example of what you're referring too. One that comes to mind, however, is one we use quite a bit for hospitals. It's called EIFS or Dryvit. Depending on where you live, you probably see it on a lot of strip malls and box stores as well. It's not unlike stucco in many ways but tends to be more uniform. A simple EIFS Vray material might consist merely of a color in the diffuse slot and a sandy texture in the bump map slot.

 

-Brodie

[mrstardust]

Good question.

 

Thats what i´m famous for.

Seriously though: Maybe this problem only occurs to me since i´m working with reference pictures and i don´t have any other information on the materials than what i see.

I guess it´s not ok to just upload the fotos i downloaded from archdaily.com, but i guess i may link there: http://www.archdaily.com/156059/house-20-jolson-architecture/

 

Most of the materials i can eyball (lots of cement...) without further knowledge, but some materials i´d like to know where to look textures/reference images if i wanna recreate them as close as possible: The metal fence on the outside for example, or the patterned cement in the column-like structure that connects all floors.

 

Another example: Wood floorings.

Of course i also could just google for it until i find the right looking textures and memorize the names ("ok, so these are washed concrete wall slabs!") for future reference...I´d just hope for some sort of online compendium with pictures so i could start from there.

 

I actually found a site thats almost spot on: http://www.raumprobe.de

Unfortunately its in german only, so i guess it´s not gonna help all readers here...It also requires a membership for some stuff, i didn´t have the time yet to check out if its useful without.

 

Another useful link would be the arroway site: you can browse a library of all their products online, you can even freely download lo-res examples of the textures.

 

Ok, i guess you could say i already got some good starting points...but i´d still appreciate more links for useful online librarys like that...

 

Or a way to just to those in my head without having to browse through all of them...

[Brodie Geers]

I see what you're saying a bit more now. You're right that this is mostly an issue just because you're going off of reference photos. If you went into ArchViz, of course, you'd be given the names of the materials. Basically you develop a library of materials over the years to look through and if you don't find something there, you search the internet ( cgtextures.com is another great website which you didn't mention). My library is divided up but I wouldn't worry too much about labels as it would get to be quite a hassle and many things go by more than one name (as is the case with my EIFS/Dryvit example). So I've got a concrete folder with anything that's concrete and I can scan the hundred or so images fairly quickly.

 

-Brodie