Hi from Colorado!

[susiehacker]

I currently work for an architecture firm as a job captain but I'd love to find someone to take a look at my rendering work and give me an idea of where I can improve etc... I'm hoping to transition in the future to an arch viz/architectural illustrator role.

[jesusgomez2]

Welcome!!

[Francisco Penaloza]

Welcome Susie!

just show us what you got

[susiehacker]

Okay I'm attempting an attachment - fingers crossed it works.

These are three of my better images. All of them were created in Revit/rendered in Revit and then placed in scene with landscape/background/entourage in Photoshop.

The Revit to Photoshop method is such a slow way for me to create an image

- I'm trying to figure out where my skills lack and which program I should focus on learning. I've wanted to try 3ds Max but I keep getting push back from my firm. I don't know if maybe I should try to learn better methods in Photoshop? I'm looking at, in the future, of potentially trying to start a freelance arch viz situation. I have a kiddo and would like to be around more for him.

 

[akshayarora]

Welcome Susie

[susiehacker]

Thanks Francisco - I keep trying to reply with an attachment and it's holding up my post....

[susiehacker]

 

Fingers crossed it worked

[susiehacker]

It worked! Okay - these are examples of my work. I'm working in Revit and then importing to Photoshop for post render/entourage/scene. It's a cumbersome process. I'm trying to decide if its worth my time to learn 3ds Max - I'm thinking yes, especially if I want to (some day) venture off on my own to start an arch viz freelance situation....

[susiehacker]

 

Example of my process - see the first image- this was a revit rendering. I then used photoshop to create the scene. It took me probably 90 hours to get everything modeled (including materials in Revit)/render/import to Photoshop/add entourage/sky/landscape/shadow... (this also included googling time because I don't do this everyday - I often need to relearn a technique or process)

 

Suggestions/comments/recommendations would be appreciated to:

1. create a better/faster work flow.

2. increase the quality of my renderings.

3. Help me narrow down my path and which programs to focus more on - should I learn more photoshop techniques? should I forget Photoshop and focus on learning 3ds Max or Lumion or Enscape?

 

Revit is really limited in lighting (or my knowledge of Revit lighting is limited) - I know this is one of my weaknesses.

 

Thanks!

[jesusgomez2]

Hi Susie,

 

if you want to jump on professional Archviz i recomend you to start learning 3dsmax.

 

Actually you can keep the revit file (if needed) and import it to 3dsmax and then work with any renderer you prefer, but that project shouldn't take more than 8-16 hours of modelling in max.

 

And never forget PS, is fundamental in postproduction, and it will help you to underestand any other adobe sotfware like premiere, after effects.. maybe usefull in the future.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Everything depends on what type of image you need, your resources, and how deep you want to learn.

If your main purpose is to learn Arch Viz, that is, take still and video visualization to the max then you need to take your model out of REVIT and use a more dedicated 3d Modeling software such, 3D Max, Cinema 4D, MODO, Blender and any other, these software have a specific set of tools to task the creation of images and animation while the main Purpose of REVIT is to generate BIM data.

 

If you need a quick way to create images that will help you to showcase your project but without the need to go too deep into Arch Viz per say, I would recommend looking into Enscape. This render engine works inside REVIT and the learning curve is very short, you can produce high-quality images with decent extra effort. Lumion would do about the same, the main difference is that you'll need to 'export' to Lumion to do anything, this may break the link to your original model but that may not be a big deal for you.

 

Enscape is a lot cheaper than Lumion, but Lumion has a larger library of resources that many people find very valuable.

Similar to Lumion you have Twinmotion, now owned by Epic same as Unreal. Twinmotion is free, very similar to Lumion workflow.

 

Learning Photoshop is a great skill, of course, there is a moment that the effort that you put in Photoshop won't pay the same way if you do it in 3D, but it is such flexible tool it is indispensable for anybody who works on the Arch Viz industry. Also if you a creative enough you can do almost everything indie this software.

 

As technology advance, there are other tools that will fill this list too, we have Unreal and Unity, these are mainly tools to the creation of Games and similar apps, but you can do archviz with them, the learning curve is very steep though and our Architectural models are not developed in an optimum way for game engines, but there are many workarounds if you need to use these tools for instance VR presentations

 

 

Sorry for the long answer, but as you can see your question is very wide and I rather try to explain most of the options that are around.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Regarding your images, they seem OK, I guess depending on the standard that they can be criticized, You can see the limitation of the tools you are using, mostly REVIT, and the fair use of Photoshop. For us, seniors in Arch Viz, this image is common for new rendering people or 'school type' quick image creation, more a concept than a fully developed image, and believe me that's OK, for many Architectural design firms in the USA.

 

The time to the creation of that image IMO depend on what's the purpose of it. If this is image is part of an actual project, so the 'modeling time' is part of your regular Architectural schedule (SDs, DDs, and so on), then 90 hours seems appropriate. now if it took you just 90 hours to model and render for the only purpose of the creation of that image, then in my arch viz world that very long.

of course, if you are new your time frames are different than anybody who does this professionally.

 

There are many things to improve your image, those could be done in Photoshop or definitely take it to a dedicated tool such as 3D Max.

 

Hope all my talk have some useful information for you.

Cheers.

[susiehacker]

Francisco - thank you for your input, I agree with everything you said. Sounds like if I want to up my game I need to look into 3ds Max and some Photoshop training. As someone in the arch viz field, do you find it frustrating to work with architects? I'm wondering if I make the jump, if it would drive me crazy to not be able to tweak designs. Also - are you self taught? What programs/schools would you recommend? I'm assuming CG architect is one of them?

[Chris Harris]

As someone in the arch viz field, do you find it frustrating to work with architects?

 

In a word, yes. It really doesn't matter what industry your clients are in, more often than not there's frustrating times.

 

However

1. it's your responsibility to educate your client on the overall process to avoid the headaches we've all endured.

 

2. Specify in a contract how many edits are allowed before its considered out of the contract's scope of work and therefore you will charge them for those changes.

 

3. Get a retainer up front so when you don't get paid months after completion of a project you aren’t getting totally stiffed.

 

There's many discussions about these things in the forum here if you search for them.

 

The ultimate goal is to find the clients who will continually feed you work (hopefully on amazing projects), trust your judgement on what to produce (mood, lighting, camera angles), and pays you what you are worth.

Edited June 26, 2019 by charris

[Francisco Penaloza]

I agreed with Chris comments, like every other human relation, communication is the key, now this change if you are an in house visualization person or if you are the contractor/outsider. I guess as a contractor/freelancer you can put your foot in the ground a little easier when you can put a price for 'extra changes'. While you work in house, it all depends on your relationship with the designers and architects.

 

It can get very frustrating at times because if you are 'only the Visualization person', you are focused to make a nice image/video/VR while if you are the Architect, you want to showcase the whole project, every detail counts. so the push and pull or too much dark, or too many colors or make transparent trees and make the image pop, more energy and all those strange words that only architects come up to compensate a none great design..... I mean to make the image better.

 

Actually not too long ago I had this issue with the young 'rock star' architect, he was refusing to accept my camera location and overall composition that is was much better than what he set up in SketchUp, than as you know it varies depending on how wide the monitor and resolution is. it got me so frustrated that I had to repeat much time what was my title in the company and how many years of experience I have, and still, he did wanted his shitty view. I took it to the principal in charge, a good friend of mine so he accepted my input. There are so hard head people around, I have learned to talk to people and explain that at the end it is all in favor to his/her project, but still, there still are some knuckleheads around.

 

If you work 'only' as visualization person, there is very little you can change on the building's design, mostly if you are a freelancer, you need to learn to work with what they give you, if you work in house you can give input but is up to the designers/Architects to take it. Composition and everything else can be managed. They tell you the concept, you tell the story.

[Chris Harris]

If you work 'only' as visualization person, there is very little you can change on the building's design, mostly if you are a freelancer, you need to learn to work with what they give you, if you work in house you can give input but is up to the designers/Architects to take it.

 

To add to Francisco's comment above, what I lend to the design for visualization projects I work on is finding errors in the CAD file/design provided to me. So after that, I bring up my concern to the designer to make sure that what they gave me was correct, or if I just saved their job by pointing it out before it got too far into the process...

[Francisco Penaloza]

I forgot your other question, I am a self though regarding Arch Viz, now I am an old timer on this, so 'in mine times' we didn't have this thing called the internet or google, well it was very new actually, so I learned mostly from books, how to model in 3D Max, or Maya, everything was mostly focused to FX by then.

I have a Degree in industrial design, so I was doing Alias waveform by then, then I got the other degree in graphic design, so there I learned basic Photoshop and freehand....similar to Illustrator then everything else was books and online forums and wherever I got a gig, small production companies, small TV studios, Construction companies, Engineering, Architects and so on.

Thankfully people start to share more, creating 'Making of' and later on tutorials and curses, now there is a plethora of great material around to choose.

 

Just be sure that they are using the latest software available, because technology changes very quickly there are many tutorials online referring to VRay 2.x workflow still and a lot of people get confused with that.

[John Dollus]

I'd suggest you look into a couple matte painting courses to increase your efficiency with compositing elements and post production kitbash techniques. That's low hanging fruit.

 

Secondly, if you are a job captain at an established architectural firm, I'd look into expanding your role as opposed to changing it altogether. You can't swing a cat without hitting a recent grad who can produce competent models and basic finishes with a revit/enscape workflow but finding someone who can manage projects and direct others to create more informed compositions and art direct is a rarity.