Built-in Cineware rendering in Archicad: Beyond basic visualization

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• Why use Cineware in Archicad
• About the author
• Where to access Cineware detailed settings?
• White Model renders for quick design studies
• Global effects: color, fog,lens and flares
• Color Correction and vignette
• Sharpen Filter and Lens effects
• Caustics
• Depth of Field and Physical Camera
• Depth of Field effect
• Depth of Field with Physical Camera
• Environment and Physical Sky
• Surface channels: building better materials
• Color channel
• Bump channel
• Reflectance: multi‑layer reflections
• Displacement: real geometry from maps
• Ambient Occlusion in materials
• Glow channel
• Grass channel
• Exporting for postprocessing
• Depth map
• Ambient occlusion map
• Illumination map (using a white model)
• Surface map (from 3D document)

Why use Cineware in Archicad 

Cineware is the built-in rendering engine in Archicad, so you can model, set up views, and create final visualizations all within a single environment. Although it is not a specialized stand‑alone renderer aiming for 100% photo‑realistic output, it can produce high‑quality images that are more than sufficient for most architectural tasks when its detailed settings are used thoughtfully. This article walks you through the most important settings you need to know to create high-quality visualizations with Cineware. 

About the author 

All descriptions and graphics in this article are based on or directly reused from the original case study by Svetlana Kravchenko, published as ‘Working with CineRender in Archicad’ on the Graphisoft website. 

Where to access Cineware detailed settings? 

To access the rendering settings inside Archicad and customize them before producing the render, navigate to Document > Creative Imaging > PhotoRendering Settings. 

White Model renders for quick design studies 

White Model is one of the most popular options in Cineware. Once activated, it is possible to quickly obtain an image that clearly shows the general design volume and proportions of the project, without the distraction of detailed materials and textures. This makes it ideal for early design reviews and for quickly communicating the main architectural idea to the client. 

Global effects: color, fog, lens and flares 

Color Correction and vignette 

The Color Correction option allows you to change the overall image contrast and depth directly in the render engine. In many cases, a small adjustment here can replace separate work in a graphics editor and still produce a convincing result. The Vignetting function can be used to create a vignette around the image, subtly darkening the edges and drawing attention towards the center of the composition. 

High contrast. High Brightness.	Low Contrast. High Brightness.
Low Contrast. Low Brightness.	High Contrast. Low Brightness.

Sharpen Filter and Lens effects 

The Sharpen Filter feature in the Lens and Filters tab also deserves attention. It lets you increase local contrast and apparent sharpness in the final image, which can be particularly useful when rendering at relatively modest resolutions. Used carefully, this filter can make textures and edges appear crisper without needing further editing.​ 

Lens Flare will activate flares included in the Light Sources parameters, so bright sources can generate the characteristic streaks and halos of real lenses.  

Standard sun flares are included in the Environment–Sun section, and they can add a subtle but expressive highlight to exterior renders when the sun is in the frame.​ 

Caustics 

It is possible to include Caustics images in the Effects tab. If the light source and surfaces enabled in rendering also include caustics generation or reception, results like those shown in the next figures can be produced. 

Depth of Field and Physical Camera 

Depth of Field effect 

You might also want to experiment with the Depth of Field parameter. This setting allows certain objects to stay in focus, while the objects in the foreground and background appear blurred. For basic rendering, the depth of field is included in the Effects section, where the focus distance can be adjusted on both sides of the camera target. This function, described in detail in the Archicad 29 Help website, can be used to guide the viewer’s eye towards the most important part of the image. 

Depth of Field with Physical Camera 

To enable physical rendering, the depth of field is controlled in the Physical Camera tab and depends on the F‑stop value. The smaller the F‑stop value (for example f/2.0 compared to f/8.0), the greater the blur will be. At the same time, global illumination will be enhanced, so it must be offset by a lower ISO value and/or exposure. In general, physical rendering simulates real photo camera behavior: you may also designate chromatic aberration and set the white balance here, and the camera aperture shape influences the blurring shape, allowing you to create both triangular and octagonal Bokeh flares. 

Environment and Physical Sky 

Using different weather settings produces interesting results with the Physical Sky enabled. Physical Sky includes clouds, stars, rainbows, sunbeams, atmosphere and fog, all of which contribute to making exterior images look more convincing. The fog, for example, may incorporate shades and light within its depth, enhancing the perception of distance and volume in the scene.​ 

By default, practically all the scenes in the Main Parameters tab have Visible Light enabled. This setting will not have any effect, however, until Visible Light is also enabled in the individual light sources used in the scene, and you should note that this function is not available for all light types. Once configured, these options let you take better advantage of volumetric effects such as light beams cutting through dust or fog.  

Surface channels: building better materials 

All the channels presented and explained in this section are found in the Surface parameter settings in Archicad. They can be accessed in Options > Element Attributes > Surfaces... 

In most situations, standard surfaces are sufficient, and additional surfaces can be retrieved from the library. Cineware in Archicad is mostly focused on procedural shaders; they can often be used for rendering bricks, parquets, tiles and stucco. As opposed to bitmap textures, procedural shaders never repeat in a visible pattern, which is very important for large surfaces, especially in exterior rendering. Various noises, weathering and gradients can be combined to create streaks and dirt on the surface.​ 

Using just a few surface parameter channels, you can generate completely different materials in terms of their visual perception.

Color channel

In the figure below, the Color channel shows either noise or a bitmap texture, and almost all the samples have Fresnel – depending on the view angle relative to the surface normal – overlaying the color. Due to the fibers that diffuse light, nearly all fabrics look somewhat lighter at an acute angle of viewing.  

Bump channel

Certainly, all the material variations have the Bump channel enabled (leather texture is used for leather, a coarse fabric texture for rough textiles, a very small noise for chamois) and various levels of Reflectance with Fresnel are included for leather. 

Reflectance: multi‑layer reflections 

Using the Reflectance channel, you can create surfaces with complex reflections. It is possible to define multiple reflection layers, regulate the blur strength using different maps (procedural, bitmap or complex combinations) and add bump mapping specifically to reflection layers without affecting other material properties. Another example is car paint, where the first reflection layer is slightly green with small bump mapping and strong blurring, and the second layer with a sharp reflection simulates a lacquer coating.  

Displacement: real geometry from maps 

The Displacement channel deserves special attention. It produces actual geometric deformation if rendered using black‑and‑white or red‑and‑green height maps. At a close view, shears can be seen, but for more distant views this method allows you to avoid modeling millions of polygons.​ 

Various noise types in the displacement channel produce interesting effects: for instance, Luka noise was used to create the mountains shown in the following figure, and the Atmosphere object in the Environment parameters helps emphasize the changes in surface relief.​ 

The following rendering shows fabric folds in the background, which were created by displacement using plain soft noise in portrait mode. This fabric is a flat rectangular morph. 

The displacement channel can also be used to smooth objects with hard edges. In the tulip example, the flowers were deliberately modeled as low poly GDL objects to plant an entire meadow efficiently and activate displacement at a minimal but sufficient height to enable Smooth Geometry. 

Model

Render

Ambient Occlusion in materials 

In addition to complex displacement and bump mapping, the Ambient Occlusion Shader Effects was used in the Color channel. The corner areas, which “see less of the sky”, will pick up a different color from the rest of the surface. Looking more closely at the central shell, you may notice that the color is paler in the recesses and more intense and darker on the heights. Ambient occlusion is calculated both for real geometry and for the geometry generated by displacement.​ 

Without ambient occlusion	With ambient occlusion

Thus, you can use occlusion to create patina in the recesses of worn furniture: use it in the Color channel for darkening and in the Reflectance channel to create a gilt effect. 

Glow channel

There is also an occlusion‑based option in the Glow channel. In real photos of a lamp, you can see that the intensity of the glow is highest in the deeper areas near the light source, while the glow at the outer edges is lower. This effect can be reproduced using the Glow channel, and the lamp will look convincing in both night and day renderings. 

Grass channel

The Grass channel is the last one on the surface list. When it is used in combination with the displacement channel (with noise in the distribution density), you can obtain a realistic ground surface. Even if the grass is represented as a dense carpet, it is better to add displacement, since the render engine does not use maps to change the individual grass blade height. 

Note that you can use it not only for grass. It is also suitable for various furs and carpets.  

Note that in the case of non‑physical rendering, grass blades will not cast shadows, so if you need full interaction with light, you should use physical rendering. 

Exporting for postprocessing

 

This section is describing how to export extra “helper” images from Archicad’s Cineware so you can tweak lighting, contrast, and shading later in Photoshop or another editor. You can save several images in addition to the primary image; they are called Render Elements. These are separate maps (layers) that isolate specific information from your scene, such as depth, ambient occlusion, or light contribution from sources. They are used for further processing in the graphics editor. 

Before postprocessing

After postprocessing

Depth map  

One useful render element is a depth map. This is a grayscale image where objects closer to the camera appear brighter and objects farther away appear darker. You can use the depth map in post‑processing to add effects like atmospheric perspective, depth‑of‑field blur, or subtle distance haze, by applying blur or gradient masks based on the depth values. 

Ambient occlusion map 

You can also create a separate map that contains only ambient occlusion. Ambient occlusion darkens areas where surfaces are close together, such as corners and junctions, giving a more realistic contact shadow effect. 

Disable everything (global illumination and illumination sources) in the PhotoRendering settings, leaving only glowing surfaces and enable the Invert checkbox in Color Correction. When overlaying this map above the source image in multiplying mode, it is possible to adjust the corner shading using a mask in separate places. 

Illumination map (using a white model) 

Using the white model effect, you can render illumination maps for specific light sources. A white model replaces all materials with a neutral, usually white surface, so you can isolate light and shadow without distracting textures. 

Surface map (from 3D document) 

If you save a 3D document view without shadows, you can generate a simple map of how different surfaces appear across the model. This shadow‑free 3D document can be exported as an image and used in post‑processing to select or mask specific materials or zones (for example, all glazing, all concrete, or all vegetation) and then adjust color, brightness, or texture emphasis in those areas only.