The Next Step..

[benchadwick]

Hey everyone,

 

I noticed there are many posts similar to this, and believe me I have been trauling through all the posts to research this stuff. Just thought I would introduce myself and why I posted.

 

This summer I finished University in Scotland. I completed my masters of Architecture after years of never really being happy with the course. I never knew exactly what I wanted to do but I did want to do something creative so I chose architecture.

 

The nature of the course meant learning a large amount of skills over time, but it was only the visual side of the course that truly excited me.

 

I don't particularly want to be an architect, but I realise the excellent skills and personal qualities it has installed in me. So here I am now on the verge of August the 1st 2014 .... And I am eager to delve into the world of arch viz and hopefully see my career go in that direction.

 

I guess I have a few questions, if anyone would be kind enough to give adive I would really appreciate it:

 

1 - Is it worth it ? Generic kind of impossible question but you know..

 

2 - I have never really used much of 3DS max, generally any renders I did at uni was sketchup with vray and ps afterward. 3DS max the way forward?

 

3 - Any tips from the wise old visualisers on here for a newbie trying to make it?

 

Hope this inst another painful post for you guys to answer !

 

Thanks !

 

Ben

[RyderSK]

I am neither old, nor wise (will probably not even reach the latter state in life, but you can get far even if you're profoundly dumb like me), but have short time now so I will write something too, not necessarily only towards you, but maybe we can have this thread all-over again :- )

 

1) It's truly generic question without answer. Over the time of (it's bit more than 3 years now) that I do CGI/Archviz for living, I forget how I felt before starting. But I actually found recently that I posted on certain forum this very question lol, where I show downright mix of uncertainty and fear of future, something I was plagued with back in day ( sort of afraid if I'll be able to do anything in life ).

To condense something into 'short' answer, yes, 3D/CGI in general, and Archviz more concretely, is quite perspective field in my opinion. It has large base of potential customers that now find it useful for their business, outgrowing the previous narrow focus on architectural offices, without straying into all-encompassing general CGI that has always been here, so being architect, helps, and can be logical choice for many.

 

But of course, what matters more is if it's just another career option, or it's something you love and want to do. It's more repetitive, focused and ever-changing/evolving that architecture itself (which on other hand, is way more complex/robust), so unless this is something you can enjoy doing 100perc. everyday, it's not the right choice. Myself, and all other friends/visualizers I know personally, share very common background. We rendered from first introduction to it in school and never stopped (I was super annoyed when another person asked me in lunch "So..do you do something else, or you just render?" ) I only state this here, because you finished master degree without delving much deeper is slight red-flag if this is truly what you want, but it can be fast-learned anyway, like most things these days. Just food for thought, I don't believe in false over-positiveness.

 

2)Most softwares nowadays are fairly evenly capable, or far capable than average artist using them. But choosing 'industry standard' still brings many other benefits to table, namely huge support base represented through know-how, plugins/extensions, ready-made content,etc. And it might be necessity to hold a job outside of freelance in most studios (with maybe rare exception for the smallest ones if you're truly exceptional)

 

3)As stated above, I am not, so none. But from overall outlook on forums in years, I would say, it's highly good idea to first ingest all the content available instead of going headbutting the wall trying to re-invent wheel by yourself. There are hundreds of guides, tutorials and tips available on network it would be really stupid to ignore it and think you can do it better from start.

[Chris MacDonald]

1 - Is it worth it ? Generic kind of impossible question but you know..

 

2 - I have never really used much of 3DS max, generally any renders I did at uni was sketchup with vray and ps afterward. 3DS max the way forward?

 

3 - Any tips from the wise old visualisers on here for a newbie trying to make it?

 

Firstly, I got here too late and Juraj covered pretty much everything I would have said.

 

1) It depends. In the long run you can earn a living from either being an architect, or architectural visualiser but the starting wage for an architect is generally quite a bit more than that of a visualiser. Obviously this is dependant on location and the quality of your work, and whether or not you freelance or work in a studio. However as we both know, money isn't everything.

 

I can't imagine a job better suited to the type of person that I am. I love everything about the job, from the necessity to constantly better yourself so that you don't get left behind, to the modelling of details, to picking camera views, to setting up lighting and shaders and so on. I genuinely love what I do; though that's not to say the work is easy! The deadlines and stress can be astonishing at times, but it's always worth it in the end.

 

2) I used Sketchup for years and still use it when it's crunch time because of the speed and knowing that I can safely bring Sketchup models into max without issues - something that takes quite a few years of trial and error before you get it spot on. Max however is kinda the defacto standard when it comes to arch vis, and whilst that's not to detract from any of the other amazing programs out there you also have to weigh up things such as model libraries, material libraries and scripts; the sheer number of them developed with max in mind, rather than C4D or Modo is amazing and could save you many, many hours reinventing the wheel in other bits of software.

 

As for render engines, any of the big ones; VRay, Mental Ray, Maxwell, Octane, etc are going to be able to churn out very high quality arch vis images. They all have the same fundamentals under the hood. My personal favourite is VRay because I know it won't fall over at critical moments, which is one of the problems I suffered with Mental Ray, though that was a number of years ago and I hear things are considerably better now.

 

I would recommend learning Mental Ray first simply because it comes with max, and thus you needn't spend an extra £800 of whatever it is for VRay. If you are ever in doubt about what MR can do, take a look at Allessandro Prodan's renders of Mies Van Der Rohe's "Farnsworth House". Doubt no more.

 

3) My main tip would be learn by throwing yourself in at the deep end and be picky about what tutorials you use when learning things. A tutorial that says "do this, then do this, then do that" is no good to anybody; what you need is a tutorial that says "do this because, then do that because". Blindly following instructions benefits no one.

 

Ultimately you should do what makes you happy; especially if you can make a living from it.

[philippelamoureux]

Thank you Juraj and Chris for the answers. Keeps me motivated to continue to learn Arch Viz too

[Nic H]

throw yourself in the deep end

make your own images and projects if you have the time

even a few key images can get you in the door of a studio.

 

dont stick to pure architectural vis tutorials either. learn about post work and proper use of 3dsmax modelling and animation tools

people who learn 3d via working at architecture practices tend to learn wrong and have terrible habits.

 

the main thing to keep in mind from my point of view is that in archvis you are making images, not documentation models!