Sketch Render Elevations

[Anonymous]

I am looking for a way to create elevations that look similar to hand sketched drawings from within ArchiCAD. If possible I would like to also be able to add colors to these elevations. For the colors my preference would be to have the colors look like colored pencil or watercolor washes. As many of my interior finishes and detailing are based on these drawings it is important that I be able to easily update and distribute them. Besides that I find that my clients find it easier to understand and get excited about a hand drawing (or at least something that looks like it) versus a computer, hard line drawing.

I searched the archiCAD Talk forum but only found older posts with complex work arounds and a sugestion to look at ArchiSketchy. I'm not real interested in the complex workaround. I am trying to move away from complex computer operations so we can focus more on architecture. ArchiSketchy looks OK but I wanted to ask if it 2D sketches are possible right from within ArchiCAD 11. It makes sense to me that there should be some native way to do this right from within ArchiCAD. Please let me know if there is a native way to create elevations that look hand drawin right from within ArchiCAD 11.

It is pretty quick for me just to hand draw and color interior elevations by tracing over the elevations generated in ArchiCAD. The problem is distributing those drawings to my clients and the trades people who are bidding on and doing the work. The colored scan images are pretty big files whether I send them to my clients and the contractors as PDFs or as placed images in my ArchiCAD drawing set. This is why I would like to know if there would be an easy way for to create these hand drawn looking elevations right in ArchiCAD. I'm thinking that generating the drawings in ArchiCAD would be faster to create and update as well as be a smaller file that is easier to distrubute and update than a hand drawn set of elevations.

I would be interested in hearing what solutions and ideas are out there.

Thank you,
John

[Rick Thompson]

In addition to what others have suggested...

If you want a "flat" elevation, then use a straight on perspective. I do the LW/sketch combined in PS method, which I find very easy and quick, and with nice results. I do one additional step. I print the sketch rendering, (after opening in photoshop and do a bit of erasing where I want bushes), then hand draw the bushes and trees, again, nothing elaborate.. quickness is the key for this:). Then scan it into PS and combine as others have described. This can take about an 1 hour or so. I add the yellowish background so it blends into a web page... and give contrast to foliage. Another thing I like to do, is change the black sketch lines to sepia in PS (colorize command).

[Erika Epstein]

Rick,
I've always liked your renderings. Thanks for the step by step. The SOLD sign is a great touch
Erika

[Rick Thompson]

Thanks

You got to do something to break any seriousness about life:)

[Rod Jurich]

Rick wrote:
/... You got to do something to break any seriousness about life:)

I agree with Erika's comment.
Hope your little flying men are friendly, Rick
The sepia look and that of the old blue print is always easy on the eye.

[Anonymous]

I appreciate everything everyone has written here. Thank you for your suggestions and ideas. The rendering examples are great and very eye appealing.

What I am looking for is an easy way to create fast colored, sketch drawings in 2D. I do them now by hand and I'd like to be able to do them with ArchiCAD so it would be easy to work back and forth from the 2D drawing to the model and then back to the 2D drawing.

This is a very different request than how to make a 2D rendering of a finished product. I hope that you understand my request and why I am asking for this feature. If you don't understand what or why I am asking for this please ask me questions. I'm serious about my request and I would like to get Graphisoft's attention as well as the input from other users to find out if this feature would be valuable to other ArchiCAD users.

This is not a request on how to turn out a rendering of a final product. For tips on doing that please start a separate post.

This feature continues to be on my wish list and I think that this thread can now be moved to the wish list. It really doesn't seem to be a feature that is currently available in ArchiCAD and I think that it should be.

It doesn't seem that it should be too hard. SketchUp does it right out of the box without it being a big deal. I understand that the two programs are very different but I do think that the Graphisoft wizards are up to the task of creating a way to create colored, 2D sketch drawings that can be used as a trace layer for elevations and sections.

You can do it guys. I know you can.

Thank you,
John

[Anonymous]

johncassel wrote:
What I am looking for is an easy way to create fast colored, sketch drawings in 2D. I do them now by hand and I'd like to be able to do them with ArchiCAD so it would be easy to work back and forth from the 2D drawing to the model and then back to the 2D drawing.

If you don't need fancy features like line end overshoot, which I expect you get in programs like archisketchy, the answer is to simply set up several new squiggly symbol line types and use these to draw your 2d elevations.

These sketchy lines can be produced using normal chained lines drawn on the floorplan and then pasted into the linetype creation dialog box. Specify the length you want that segment to be, and then that line type is available for use.

Setting up more than one helps prevent repetition when there are several lines the same length next to each other.

Use fills to create areas of colour and tone. It helps to turn off the outline to just leave the colour. If you had AC12 you could also experiment with the new image fills that can use actual images of materials, instead of a solid colour.

My rubbish 2 minute attempt sort-of shows the effect. If more care were taken with the creation of the squiggly lines and the choosing of colours, better results can be had.

Be aware if you then bring the drawing into Autocad for some reason, mine (LT2004) throws up an error if you then try to copy those symbolic lines out of Autocad again.

Hope thats closer to what you require! Good luck!

[Karl Ottenstein]

johncassel wrote:
...and I think that this thread can now be moved to the wish list. It really doesn't seem to be a feature that is currently available in ArchiCAD and I think that it should be.

It doesn't seem that it should be too hard. SketchUp does it right out of the box without it being a big deal. I understand that the two programs are very different but I do think that the Graphisoft wizards are up to the task of creating a way to create colored, 2D sketch drawings that can be used as a trace layer for elevations and sections.

You can do it guys. I know you can.

Thank you,
John

Moved to a wish forum, John. If you're asking for dynamic sketch styles as in SketchUp, then I understand what you're after now. Personally, I guess I don't see this as something that is done often enough that the methods given earlier in this thread aren't good enough ...and certainly a method such as Rick's cannot be automated.

Cheers,
Karl

[Anonymous]

Even vanilla AutoCAD has a free plugin for subscribers to produce quick sketchy rendered plans and elevations.

It's called impressions. Check out the design gallery:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=9246650

I know it's possible to do something similar in ArchiCAD with a bit of help from photoshop (or CorelDRAW), but how about something like a model-view option: easy to use straight out of the box.

[Eduardo Rolon]

Are you looking for something like this?

http://vimeo.com/1669862?pg=embed&sec=1669862

http://vimeo.com/2864554

[Rick Thompson]

That's very nice. I like the CAD update feature... referring to the Autodesk add-on.