{"id":54996,"date":"2019-12-02T16:41:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T21:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/architizer.com\/blog\/?p=54996"},"modified":"2021-10-21T09:08:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T13:08:53","slug":"rendering-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.arc.ht\/blog\/practice\/tools\/rendering-tips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Rendering: 7 Tips for Improving Your Architectural Visualization Skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

The winners of Architizer\u2019s 3rd Annual One Rendering Challenge have been revealed<\/a>! Interested in next year's program? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for updates.<\/em> <\/p>\n

Let’s face it: Creating great renderings is hard. The process can be time consuming, tedious and expensive, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the countless amount of components that go into producing a quality rendering. However, they’re an essential means of communicating the fine details, ideas and qualities of an architectural project. When produced well, renderings can powerfully showcase the experience of inhabiting a certain space and convey the character of a project.<\/p>\n

Those are the kinds of renderings we want to see from you in Architizer’s One Rendering Challenge<\/a>, a global ideas competition with a simple brief: Tell a powerful story about architecture with a single rendering. For those interested in entering this year, we’ve put together some handy tips from the experts in this field. There’s no one way to craft a great rendering, so how you choose to integrate these tips into your workflow is totally up to you.<\/p>\n

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1. Master Surface Reflectivity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

You should aim to get your models as accurate as possible, meaning a high and consistent level of fine detailing should be present throughout the rendering. A major component to this is surface reflectivity, which is crucial in developing a photorealistic model. In order to better inform yourself before tackling this element of a rendering try studying real-world materials along with researching reflection values on various rendering platforms.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Lasse Rode of Berlin-based studio xoio<\/a> explains: “The real world is a highly reflective place! Pure diffuse is pretty hard to come by actually, whereas in the CG world, it is very easy to diffuse your scenes to death. Most things reflect light in a certain way, and the biggest difference is related to the surface glossiness. Considering this \u2014 all of your materials should have some level of reflection and have maps assigned to their glossiness and reflection slots. Don\u2019t be lazy on this one. It can have a great impact on the final look.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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2. Explore Non-Photorealistic Styles<\/b><\/h2>\n

When it comes to architectural visualization, more stylized and illustrative approaches can also be taken, combining traditional art approaches and digital applications. Watercolor, for example, is a popular visualization technique that can compliment architectural software by yielding more expressive details and qualities of a project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After developing a model with a sufficient level of detail, export and open in CAD in order to generate a good wireframe for use as a basic drawing. From there, utilize the application\u2019s hatches and lines to accentuate areas of the drawing, especially strong black hatches for the landscape and shadows. This will result in a good basis for watercoloring in Photoshop.<\/span><\/p>\n