Here, I'll post things that I think you'll enjoy. Most of my posts will be about architectural illustrations, 3D renderings, new software, and anything else cool.
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Cool Stuff
We'd like to thank the amazing artists and studios whose work we feature here in our 2014 VFX showreel. Every year we are inspired by what artists bring to V-Ray.
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Published on Sep 3, 2014
A single keyboard allows you to type on anything! The Bluetooth® Multi-Device Keyboard K480 is a unique keyboard for your Windows, Mac or Chrome computer…that also works with your Android or iOS mobile devices. With a flick of a switch, you can change typing from one device to the next. (Bluetooth wireless device required)
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Simply amazing work from from INDUSTRY VISUAL EFFECTS. The first video is the teaser and the second video is the breakdown... all computer generated!
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The 5th 2014 blog birthday giveaway is here! iToo Software will give one of you lucky followers a chance to pick between a Forest Pack or RailClone 2 License. You will also have the chance to win either one by sending a 3d render/s you made using one or both plugins to create an amazing visual. The image you’ll submit here could also work for Grant Warwick’s giveaway.
Founded in 1999 in Spain, iToo Software is a 3D software developing company, and creators of Forest Pack and Rail Clone, plugins for Autodesk® 3DS Max® and 3DS Max Design®. Their main objectives are customers´ satisfaction with their products, providing a high quality software and personalized support.
Forest Pack is a plugin for 3d Studio Max, designed to give a complete solution for creation of vast surfaces of trees, grass and plants. Forest enables you to combine billboards, high poly meshes and proxies, and using Mental Ray and V-Ray native shaders, create scenes with virtually unlimited number of objects and polygons.
Some of its features are: camera clipping, tint maps, clusters, tree editor, falloff curves, animation support, integrated library browser and much more. Working as an advanced scattering tool, Forest can be used not only for plants, but for any scene that include vast distributions of objects as: rocks, buildings or crowds.
RailClone 2 is a 3DS Max plugin for parametric modeling based on custom geometry parts, definable by the user, and a set of construction rules. This new concept of modeling lets you to build complex and realistic structures for Architectural Visualization, Civil Engineering and Interior Design.
The software includes a full library of preset models to create Fences, Railings, Barriers, Handrails or Walls. RailClone is not limited to a fixed set of primitives, you can use any geometry from the scene and define your own parametric structures.
iToo Software, are still offering a 15% discount on the purchase of Forest Pack Pro, RailClone 2 or the new Forest Pack + RailClone Bundle.
Don’t miss the chance to get one of my favorite plugins during this great deal ending on August 31st come midnight (GMT+2)!
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Working in a job that requires you to meet constant deadlines is a demanding activity. Yet, some people thrive in this sort of environment, especially when they know some of the tricks to meeting deadlines. Have you got what it takes?
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Don't you love when old and new come together to create something wonderful?
Hungarian graphic artist Zsolt Ekho Farkas was on vacation with his wife when she pointed out Gyula Benczúr's painting "Budavár repossession" in a booklet and asked him if he could render it in 3D. Challenge accepted!
Watch in this video as 21st century technology is applied to the 19th century painting to create an aesthetically awesome and mesmerizing work of digital art. If you'd like to learn more about Farkas' other work, be sure to visit his website here.
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By: The Houseplanologist
Architecture is a competitive business. There are thousands of talented designers out there, and selling your concepts, or choosing between different plans if you’re a home buyer, is a lot like other parts of life: it all starts with great presentation. That’s where architectural illustration comes in. A beautiful rendering is like great package design – it attracts attention and teases out buyer curiosity. But it’s also part of the product itself. Effective illustrations breathe life and zest into building plans, firing up the imagination and bringing depth of understanding to those of us who struggle to see an architect’s vision without additional help.
Minnesota-based architectural illustrator Bobby Parker has many years experience in architectural rendering and kindly spared a bit of time to fill us in on some of the aspects of working in this rapidly changing field:
H: HI BOBBY – CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AS AN ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATOR – HOW DID YOU GET STARTED AND IS THERE A PARTICULAR AREA THAT YOU SPECIALIZE IN?
BP: I’ve always drawn; from my earliest childhood memories, I was drawing. I remember during middle school, we did an occupational survey. We answered questions, and it told us what career path we should follow. Mine was architecture. So naturally I pursued architecture in college, but after a couple years I knew it wasn’t for me; we just didn’t draw enough! So, I became an architectural illustrator. At first it was a hobby, but since I worked in the architectural industry, my art skill was appreciated. I started off with pencil and paper and now I produce photo-real architectural renderings.
Image: ‘The House in the Woods’, Exterior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)
H: I GUESS THE DAYS OF HAND DRAWN ILLUSTRATION ARE ALMOST GONE, WITH ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AROUND. ARE YOU 100% FOCUSED ON DIGITAL RENDERING, OR DO YOU STILL GET REQUESTS FOR HAND DRAWN WORK?
BP: I’m 100% digital, but by combining the fundamentals of art with the most current industry technology, I can now create photo-real architectural renderings. I do have a home studio that is stocked and ready to go, with pencils and paper, but I haven’t had the courage to get back to drawing.
H: WHAT KIND OF INFORMATION IS GENERALLY NEEDED TO CREATE A RENDERING?
BP: I’ve worked from napkin sketches to construction documents, so I’m flexible. I do find that the more freedom I’m given, the better my work is, and I think my clients would agree.
Image: ‘The Empire Office’, Interior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)
H: PROFESSIONAL ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION ALWAYS GRABS MY ATTENTION ON THE HOUSE PLAN SITES, AND I CAN IMAGINE THAT IT WOULD INCREASE THE MARKETABILITY OF A HOUSE PLAN ENORMOUSLY – WHAT KIND OF COSTS ARE INVOLVED FOR AN ARCHITECT OR DESIGNER WHO WANTS TO UTILIZE THAT KIND OF OPTION FOR THEIR WORK?
BP: We are very visual beings. Although the trained person, for the most part, can see their intent in their own minds-eye, most lay people can’t. We, as architectural illustrators, have the task of helping the lay person see what the designer sees. I think a great architectural rendering is worth its weight in gold. It would cost a homeowner more to move one window or wall than it would to acquire a well done architectural rendering. Most people only build one house in their life, and it’s usually their dream home, so it’s worth the investment. Now, to place a dollar figure on it would be difficult because each project is different.
H: WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO’VE HAD A DRAFTSPERSON PREPARE PLANS FOR THEIR DREAM HOME BUT WANT TO BE ABLE TO VISUALIZE THEIR PROJECT MORE FULLY BEFORE COMMITTING – DO YOU WORK WITH THAT KIND OF CLIENTELE AS WELL?
BP: Surprisingly, I have had many homeowners over the past year contract me to create an architectural illustration because their hired architect didn’t have the talent in-house. Most firms have draftspeople, but few have artists.
Image: ‘The Red Wood Crystal Kitchen’, Interior Photo-Real Rendering (Bobby Parker)
H: IS THERE A ‘SIGNATURE STYLE’ IN YOUR WORK – PARTICULAR TECHNIQUES OR INFLUENCES YOU LIKE TO INCORPORATE?
BP: I love light and shadow, so you’ll always see a lot of contrast in my work. Generally, I use contrast to draw the viewer into my image, and ultimately to the image’s focal point.
H: AND FINALLY, ARCHITECTURAL ILLUSTRATION IS SUCH A SPECIALIZED AREA – DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR ANYONE THINKING OF PURSUING IT AS A CAREER?
BP: Learn basic art fundamentals. Most renderings you see now are done by the office tech because it’s software after all that’s being used, but that’s a huge mistake. Study art first and learn the software afterwards. There is art science behind a good architectural rendering. Although good software is important, it’s the artist that makes the magic happen.
Image: ‘Butterfly Window Box’ (Bobby Parker)
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Google, VMware, and NVIDIA were on hand at VMworld 2014 to show off a collaborative effort utilizing VMware Blast Performance and NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology. The result will be high performance virtual desktops and workstation-class graphics for Chromebooks.
Imagine getting hardware-accelerated graphics, and at the same time, enjoying the flexibility of a virtual environment. With the flexibility of the Chromebook, manufacturers can design complex 3D models and share them with engineers around the globe. Applications such as Adobe Illustrator CC, Autodesk AutoCAD, Microsoft Office will have no trouble running smoothly in this virtual environment.
“We are breaking down traditional barriers to adopting virtual desktops and offering new economics for the delivery of graphics-intensive applications through the power of the cloud,” said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. “Organizations of all industries and requirements will soon be able to embrace the mobile-cloud using a solution that offers a new way to work from three proven industry leaders.”
Chromebooks featuring NVIDIA Tegra K1-processors will be among the first ones to get access to this technology. An early access program will become available in Q4 2014, but users will need to register.
What do you guys think? I think we are starting to see what Google’s vision was with the Chromebook.
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Google today announced that it has acquired Zync Render, a service that makes it easier for movie studios to render their visual effects in the cloud. The technology was used to render effects in movies like Star Trek: Into Darkness and Looper, for example. Google will use the technology to make it easier for studios to use its Cloud Platform infrastructure to render their creations.
Currently, ZYNC is optimized for work on Amazon’s EC2 service, but Google will now integrate it into its Cloud Platform. ZYNC says its technology has been used to produce “over a dozen” feature films and hundreds of commercials, for a total of 6.5 million core hours of rendering time.
As Google notes today, it typically takes a very powerful infrastructure to render the special effects in a movie. Most studios have their own render farms for this. Those studios would only need a cloud service to sometimes burst their capacity to finish a job faster. Others, however, don’t have access to their own servers (or don’t want to deal with them), and for them, the cloud is the only way to render their effects.
Google says it will offer studios per-minute billing, but otherwise, the company remains pretty quiet about its exact plans for this service. The ZYNC team itself notes that it believes that “the scale and reliability of Google Cloud Platform will help us offer an even better service to our customers — including more scalability, more host packages and better pricing (including per-minute billing).”
It’s worth noting that Amazon has regularly positioned its platform as a solution for rendering visual effects, too. Indeed, it currently features a case study aroundAtomic Fiction‘s work on Star Trek: Into Darkness — the same movie ZYNC also worked on. Microsoft, too, has occasionally brought up its cloud’s suitability for this kind of work.
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