simple render strategies? what are you doing?

[proto]

[for reference, we are designing small projects: single family residential & small commercial]

From what i can determine, the nicer render examples I see (whatever the render engine) are often the result of a careful & time-consuming strategy that is targeted at generating a model purely for rendering. The strategy usually consists of:

1) accurate/careful modeling of the space id'ed for the perspective view, including isolation of surfaces by material;

2) accurate/careful material/texture application for the surfaces in the specific view;

3) careful lighting of the space specific to the selected view; then

4) push the render button then post production/image correction/editing/entourage.

Each step, as best I can tell, takes equal efforts. Not necessarily the dream sold to us of rendering a parametric model with a click or two; and FWICT the models are often produced in Rhino or Sketchup, not Archicad. Producing a balanced archicad model is about making decisions that use the parametricity that's useful & not just infinitesimally modeling each atom of the structure/site.

What strategies work for you in your process for generating SD & DD level renderings?

[Tim Ball]

I work on similar projects and use a few different approaches depending on the work stage and the overall fee:

Sketch design - I keep it simple and quick by using screenshots of the internal 3D views. I would use live views but the resolution is awful (it’s been complained about for years). I also use 3D docs a lot.

Detailed design - I use the standard rendering but sometimes overlay with Sketch Renders which can give you a fuzzier look. I have also wrestled with Twinmotion but it’s quite slow in terms of workflow

Working drawings - exclusively 3D docs because they are live and you can annotate

Overall  I try to manage client expectations and concentrate on design rather than realism

[proto]

To date, while we find 3d essential to show clients, we’ve avoided photoreal render efforts. We’ve tried to concentrate on monochromatic spaces with somewhat reasonable lighting to give a feeling of the space.. But I’m starting to see them as more prevalent in our colleagues work.

[Erwin Edel]

I find that having artist impression not be super photorealistic, invites the client to discuss the design. Some people assume super photo real renders are the final design and there is no more room for input.

The biggest time sink is image size, in my experience. 195x135 mm at 300 dpi prints fine blown up to a full A4 sheet and looks good on HD displays and mobile devices.

BIMx is a good tool for clients to explore the design as well.

[proto]

I’ve been frustrated by watching the how-to videos from Twinmotion & Enscape that seem to avoid the issue of how intensely modeled, or textured, or lighted, a model needs to be; or whether there are things we can skip in that process that are ultimately negligible for an effectively lighted image. The intro videos I see seem to gloss over that part as if gorgeous models don’t take time or particular strategy. Those intro videos seem to spend time on landscape tools, or whether or how to install plugins. Those are important, but the essential components of well-rendered projects seems to be assumed, when those skills and techniques may be more fundamental than all the bling-y aftereffects to producing an effective rendering.

[Paul Chebiniak]

First my rant, then my product....

I've been using Archicad since version 12 and I've got to agree with the post above that this is not really an all inclusive program in terms of modeling to renderings to working drawings. The rendering component is not anywhere near as simple to use or does it produce the high quality renderings without post modeling work- up and additional applications. It seems graphisoft is always touting a new rendering component or feature, but in practicality, they are not as robust or simple to use as I would like for the money we pay. Lights & Surfaces are too much to deal with and seem to be specialized skills. 

We are a small, residential based firm, and each PM or designer is responsible for all the work, we don't have teams of people to make renderings when the design is ready.... I'm sure many users fit this bill. Graphisoft needs to make color renderings easier to create and use. 

For a long time I used the 3D view to create line drawings of my models which i shared with clients and included on working drawings. 

Recently I switched to using  the sketch renderer, and have come up with a decent standard that produces decent 3D line drawings that can be more expressive or more hardline looking. Once you get the settings you like, you can save them and render any 3D View you like, save as a pdf, and insert into your plot layout sheet. It takes my computer a matter of seconds to generate the rendering.

I'm attaching samples of one project, what do you think?

[jl_lt]

twinmotion has been a game changer for us. We dont aim to the stars (nor photorealism) with it, but its ability to show you feedback in real time allows for very rapidly stabilishing the view, framing, light conditions etc, and then the info can be edited on photo editors.  

In our case, lightning, integration with real on-site photos, textures, point of view, design intent, and human scales and a little bit of story telling are more important than photorealism save for those few ocasions that we trully need it.