Free 3D
After you get done trying to say "Free 3D" three times fast, whip over to Strata's web site and download their fully working version of Strata 3D for free. No strings attached, nothing other than a 24 meg download. A cool note here is that they have a version for both Mac and PC for those in dual offices or with a PC deficiency.
3D firms
Many firms aren't ready to take the plunge of software, hardware, expertise, time, etc. to produce high quality, good looking renderings of their buildings. They need to have someone else do it for them, and with more and more cities increasing the requirements to have a project be presented as a rendering, it is a lucrative time for these new breed of architectural renderers. There are numerous options and places to go to find someone who does this sort of work. There are also large variations in the cost of creating them. One firm that does an incredibly beautiful job is 3-D Design Inc. so long as they don't use put people into the rendering. If you want to see how a rendering should be, these guys for the most part do an excellent job. My only complaint are that their rendered people that have no shadows. It is important when inserting objects such as plants, cars or people into a rendering that the perspective, scale, lighting and shadow show up correctly. Nothing looks worse than something pasted into the rendering that is floating there without shadow. Your eye might miss why there is a problem, but your brain sees it and knows instinctively that something is amiss. For a good example of how not to do it, check out Blue Sky Digital. They offer both 3D and something they call 2D renderings. The 2D renderings, while are a colored image of your project with trees, cars and sky, they are really hard to look at because the perspectives are so wrong. Some of their objects are in perspective and the building is not. Their 3D work also has serious problems. For example on one image they show 4 cars in the foreground. Two of the cars are mid motion in turn, yet they have no blur on them to show that forward momentum. One is driving down the road, again with a lack of blur, and the fourth is driving at what would appear to be mach 2 veering towards the building. Now, their prices are incredibly reasonable, but as always, you pay for what you get. Of course there are still people out there that hand render such as Cliff Minor Architectural Rendering. When looking at renderings another issue is whether or not the artist uses materials in the picture. If you look at CADLib's work, you'll notice it's very simple forms, very little if any material application. These should be very cheap and quick to produce renderings. You'll notice that most of their renderings are simply rendered with what color the layer was set to. For a nice example of correctly added people, good bitmaps, and perfectly matched shadows, check out Perspective Arts. Notice on this image that the brick at the right of the rendering is perfectly placed with grout lines where they belong. Also notice the woman's shadow is both the same intensity and direction as the rest of the shadows, and her reflection can be seen in the window in front of her. There is something laying on the floor on the bottom right side, as well as what might be some garbage on the chair. These sorts of touches add realism to the rendering. Your mind sees them and passes over them without really noticing, but in renderings where that "grit" is missing they are usually much too sterile looking. If you continue looking through their site you'll see these guys have reflective materials and lights down pat. Another thing to consider when rendering is partial objects. While you want to focus attention on the center of the rendering, your project, you also need to have items coming in from the sides of the rendering. If you take a picture of a real building, it's not sitting in a empty field normally. Instead there is life going on around it. If you look at Architectural Art's project here you'll see not only a car part way into the rendering, but also a shadow of a tree in the foreground of a tree that's outside of the actual image. Trees can be a wonderful way to help compose the image that you're rendering, and if you don't want to put the rendering in a real photo, you can easily add trees on the sides to hide the horizon. In the last image by Architectural Art you'll see on each side of the building in the background are trees and bushes conveniently placed so you can't see the sky meeting the ground. Before choosing your renderers consider what your budget is, look at their portfolio with these sorts of things in mind, and consider what you are looking for. The amount of realism in the rendering quickly can up the cost of it. Consider how many angles you want rendered as each angle increase the amount of the building that needs to be drawn. Are the windows opaque or transparent? If you can see through them into the building, do you really want someone to spend countless hours creating the inside of the building? On some offices with elaborate glass entries, this is very important, whereas on most homes it isn't. Maybe you don't need it done in 3D, but rather are simply looking at a color study. For example I work with M-Color all the time at Tierney / Figueiredo Architects where we can generate a 2D colored image such as this in as little as one day, with most of the time being spent on playing with the colors to generate what the architect wants. I've been doing 3D work now for years and can tell you from experience, it is an artistic endeavor to create good looking computer renderings, plus you have to have the right software and know it inside and out.
After you get done trying to say "Free 3D" three times fast, whip over to Strata's web site and download their fully working version of Strata 3D for free. No strings attached, nothing other than a 24 meg download. A cool note here is that they have a version for both Mac and PC for those in dual offices or with a PC deficiency.
3D firms
Many firms aren't ready to take the plunge of software, hardware, expertise, time, etc. to produce high quality, good looking renderings of their buildings. They need to have someone else do it for them, and with more and more cities increasing the requirements to have a project be presented as a rendering, it is a lucrative time for these new breed of architectural renderers. There are numerous options and places to go to find someone who does this sort of work. There are also large variations in the cost of creating them. One firm that does an incredibly beautiful job is 3-D Design Inc. so long as they don't use put people into the rendering. If you want to see how a rendering should be, these guys for the most part do an excellent job. My only complaint are that their rendered people that have no shadows. It is important when inserting objects such as plants, cars or people into a rendering that the perspective, scale, lighting and shadow show up correctly. Nothing looks worse than something pasted into the rendering that is floating there without shadow. Your eye might miss why there is a problem, but your brain sees it and knows instinctively that something is amiss. For a good example of how not to do it, check out Blue Sky Digital. They offer both 3D and something they call 2D renderings. The 2D renderings, while are a colored image of your project with trees, cars and sky, they are really hard to look at because the perspectives are so wrong. Some of their objects are in perspective and the building is not. Their 3D work also has serious problems. For example on one image they show 4 cars in the foreground. Two of the cars are mid motion in turn, yet they have no blur on them to show that forward momentum. One is driving down the road, again with a lack of blur, and the fourth is driving at what would appear to be mach 2 veering towards the building. Now, their prices are incredibly reasonable, but as always, you pay for what you get. Of course there are still people out there that hand render such as Cliff Minor Architectural Rendering. When looking at renderings another issue is whether or not the artist uses materials in the picture. If you look at CADLib's work, you'll notice it's very simple forms, very little if any material application. These should be very cheap and quick to produce renderings. You'll notice that most of their renderings are simply rendered with what color the layer was set to. For a nice example of correctly added people, good bitmaps, and perfectly matched shadows, check out Perspective Arts. Notice on this image that the brick at the right of the rendering is perfectly placed with grout lines where they belong. Also notice the woman's shadow is both the same intensity and direction as the rest of the shadows, and her reflection can be seen in the window in front of her. There is something laying on the floor on the bottom right side, as well as what might be some garbage on the chair. These sorts of touches add realism to the rendering. Your mind sees them and passes over them without really noticing, but in renderings where that "grit" is missing they are usually much too sterile looking. If you continue looking through their site you'll see these guys have reflective materials and lights down pat. Another thing to consider when rendering is partial objects. While you want to focus attention on the center of the rendering, your project, you also need to have items coming in from the sides of the rendering. If you take a picture of a real building, it's not sitting in a empty field normally. Instead there is life going on around it. If you look at Architectural Art's project here you'll see not only a car part way into the rendering, but also a shadow of a tree in the foreground of a tree that's outside of the actual image. Trees can be a wonderful way to help compose the image that you're rendering, and if you don't want to put the rendering in a real photo, you can easily add trees on the sides to hide the horizon. In the last image by Architectural Art you'll see on each side of the building in the background are trees and bushes conveniently placed so you can't see the sky meeting the ground. Before choosing your renderers consider what your budget is, look at their portfolio with these sorts of things in mind, and consider what you are looking for. The amount of realism in the rendering quickly can up the cost of it. Consider how many angles you want rendered as each angle increase the amount of the building that needs to be drawn. Are the windows opaque or transparent? If you can see through them into the building, do you really want someone to spend countless hours creating the inside of the building? On some offices with elaborate glass entries, this is very important, whereas on most homes it isn't. Maybe you don't need it done in 3D, but rather are simply looking at a color study. For example I work with M-Color all the time at Tierney / Figueiredo Architects where we can generate a 2D colored image such as this in as little as one day, with most of the time being spent on playing with the colors to generate what the architect wants. I've been doing 3D work now for years and can tell you from experience, it is an artistic endeavor to create good looking computer renderings, plus you have to have the right software and know it inside and out.
Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article 3D scrutinized in AutoCAD Design is owned by . Permission to republish 3D scrutinized in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
