Comments/Suggestions Welcome

[Anonymous]

My attempt at a country kitchen...

[Dwight]

What version of ArchiCAD are you using?

This image has the grey overtones of an ArchiCAD Internal rendering engine image, obsolete [for neary two years] since ArchCAD 9's introduction of the LightWorks rendering engine that does raytracing - providing soft shadows and more sophistication in materials.

In either engine, an awareness of color is important. It is often difficult for drafters to move into rendering because of an inclination to understand the world in black and white. Everything has color - that is why it is important to tint your sunlight warm and your skylight and ambient toward the cool.

What really kills this image, however is a design decision you made: the grey cabinets. They add to the murk and make the surfaces amiguous. If you want to render grey cabinets, the lighting solution - in real life, too - demands very theatrical lighting - plenty of gold to add contrast.

Also: is this room entirely skylit - no roof? Renderings of rooms should possess a sense of internal energy - from window light and lamplight - that is destroyed in this case by the fragmented sun shadows falling into the scene.

[Bruce]

Does this mean that if you have a colour blindness issue (like me) you will be a failure at photo-realistic rendering?

[Dwight]

Of course not. You can be photoreal. Just stick with black and white photoreal. nyuk nyuk.

I would consider it to be a major impediment if your ability to assess color is nil - but most men have color sense with some weaknesses - I am weak with certain dusky purples - sissy colors - so I consult the missus when I work with purple. That weakness is shared by 20% of adult males.

I worked with a color blind landscape architect. This was back in the days when we colored plans with those stinky markers. Squeak squeak, sssnnnniiiifffff, ahhhh. He learned his marker numbers and worked accordingly.

Partial color blindness doesn't mean you can't develop a reliable palette of colors, but it does indicate that you might miss an oversaturated green or whatever - a killer for any image. So have co-workers check you out.

With computer illustration, we have many years of experience in horrid ArchiCAD renderings from people allegedly not color blind but untrained in artistic image assessment. So there is more than one way to mess up besides by having a physical disability...
.
If you are good at assessing tonal value, stick with toned monochromatic renderings. Figure out a good tint like sepia or ultramarine and illustrate in tinted greys. Most great renderings aren't accurately colored even if they are "photoreal." Besides, what IS reality, man?......

The computer doesn't render predictably out of the box. Every illustrator must tweak, and tweaking needs critical visual judgement.

Another barrier to success in rendering is that certain aptitudes suggest a lack of vision in other areas. For instance, when I was in design school, I felt that it was important to delineate with precision - my work was repressed. I met a woman who was in the associated interior design school and while we were becoming better acquainted, I noticed that she saw the world in planes of color and volumes of light and dark. Of course, school was meant to expand the mind and raise social standing. Now I think of space and color, and light and volume. To hell with making lines meet! That is a job for a servant!

[Dwight]

adult

[Dwight]

a d u l t

[Bruce]

cheers for that dwight.

I often get sniggers at work when I colour something. My response is 'what?'

I've since learned to open the paint manufacturer's web site and copy the rgb values from appropriate looking colours. Much better.

[Dwight]

Well.
There's your hint.

Do you know the parable about the six color blind men who met the elephant?

They couldn't agree on his color, but they weren't sure.