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Cast Shadows
Cast shadows are a outstanding way to evoke a notion of sunshine in your rendering, so make the most out of them. Where you have a house or building, by all means push those trees closer in to give yourself an excuse to lay cast shadows over the walls and roof - it will breathe a little magic into your rendering.
Cast Shadows
Another thing you can do, to utilize cast shadows, is place a Gobo off screen. A Gobo is a partial screen used in front of a spotlight to project a shape. Here is a great resource for some free Gobos:
If you have any question please, contact me, and I'll reply as soon as possible.
Try to Avoid Parallax
Who wants a building to look like it’s falling over?
If everything in the scene is approximately the same distance from the camera, or very far away, the parallax effect will be elminated or at least minimized.
The way you keep your verticals vertical is to try to keep the plane of your camera parallel to the vertical line of the building, which is not always possible, of course.
Wide angle lenses can help reduce parallax effects because a wide angle lens accentuates perspective, making everything seem further away. However wide angle lenses also have a larger field of view so there is a greater chance that things in the foreground (including the ground itself) are captured and then cause problems.
If you use a render engine like V-Ray, you'll have a guess parallax toggle, but if you don't, there are post-processing tricks to do the necessary tweaks!
If you have any question please, contact me, and I'll reply as soon as possible.
Kahn's Exeter Short Film
CG Shortfilm about Louis Kahn's Phillips Exeter Academy Library.
Footage from "The Third & The Seventh" project for illustrating Mundos Digitales 2009 conference.
Done with 3dsmax, Vray, AE and Premiere
Know Your Rights: Copyright 101 for Artists
How Much Do You Know About Copyright?
Artist Daily and the staff at Interweave have released a new free eBook Know Your Rights: Copyright 101 for Artists to help raise awareness of the issues surrounding copyright and give credit to the talented writers, designers, artists, photographers, and innovators who work with us to share their products and ideas with our readers.
This guide to the basics of copyright is for anyone and everyone: designers and makers, crafters, retailers, library staff, educators, and more.
Most people think of pirated movies or music when they hear about copyright violations, says Eunny Jang, editor ofInterweave Knits magazine. But we answer questions about copyright for crafters, artists, designers, and authors every day—copyright and other intellectual property issues are a big deal in the DIY marketplace, where the "I can do that!" spirit and respect for original, independent design and authorship need to coexist peacefully.
This free resource addresses topics such as:
- What is copyright?
- How does copyright work?
- What is copyright infringement?
- Plus other pressing topics from simple questions to more complex issues, such as:
- Can I resell a pattern/magazine/book/DVD I own? What about purchases of my digital downloads?
- Can I make and sell projects I found in a book or magazine?
- Where can I find more instructions for projects that I can make and sell?
- How can I tell if a work is in the public domain?
- Do I always retain copyright as the original author of a piece?
- What do I do if someone’s violating my copyright?
- And much more.
Ultimately, copyright is about protecting the creative process, ensuring that the creator of a work can benefit from that work," adds Jang.
Our goal at Interweave is to educate our consumers about what copyright is, and why it matters—and to give authors, artists, and designers everywhere the tools they need to protect their own rights so they can continue to create new works and share them with the public.
Colored Pencil Techniques
Colored Pencil Techniques from Artist Daily: Create Faster, Richer Effects in Your Colored Pencil Drawings
As a medium, colored pencils are rapidly growing to a higher level of appreciation in the art world today.Artist Daily has compiled free tips and techniques for achieving fresh and innovative effects using colored pencils in this free eBook. Many artists over the years have come to find out that color pencils are a very non-forgiving medium. However, following this free tutorial, you may find how fulfilling and uplifting working with color pencils to be.
Colored pencil art is on the rise. Many artists want the lushness of color and the precision of a drawing implement, and the ability to mix the two with their painting practices as well. Using colored pencils is a way to have all of this. In our new free eBook, Colored Pencil Techniques: Create Faster, Richer Effects in Your Colored Pencil Drawings, artist Janie Gildow gives a colored pencil tutorial based on her own artistic practices that show just how adaptable colored pencils can be. Get your free copy today!
A Blend of Color Temperature
A full cloud cover brings together the color of the sun (white, 5200k) and that of the blue sky (about 8000k to 10,000k), merging them into a color temperature that is slightly higher than the sunlight alone. The amount of blending depends on the cloud cover, but a general rule of thumb is 6000k.
Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d
Harvard GSD student Greg Tran, whose thesis explored “architecture’s ability to mediate spatial and perceptual experience.” His exploration into techniques that engage and allow for an immersive experience for architects to design with presents an interesting proposal for the future of our profession. The technology, in its current state is largely unexploited and employed as a standalone object, rather than a holistic experience and progressive tool. See his video and proposal for an enlightening take on how we can use this technology for the advancement of architecture. Greg Tran is the recent Thesis Prize Winner – Harvard Graduate School of Design 2011.
Interior Renderings and Illustrations
Chairs, tables, sofas, and other pieces usually figure so prominently that perfection in the rest of the rendering is negated if the furniture is not up to standard.
Illustrations may depict complete rooms, or they may be vignettes of home furnishings or products set against suggested backgrounds.
Interior decorators, designers, and architects use these renderings as presentation drawings and for submission to their clients. Some are reproduced in brochures.
Department and furniture stores, or their advertising agencies, include interior renderings in ads that merchandize houshold necessities.
If you have any question please, contact me, and I'll reply as soon as possible.
Stephen Wiltshire: The Human Camera
Stephen Wiltshire has been called the "Human Camera." In this short excerpt from the film Beautiful Minds: A Voyage into the Brain, Wiltshire takes a helicopter journey over Rome and then draws a panoramic view of what he saw, entirely from memory
V-Ray Architectural Demo Reel 2012
These demo reels were created with the special support of numerous 3D professionals whose avant-garde imaginations and endless passion for innovation are setting trends in the CG industry. Special thanks to all! All copyright and trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Will The Real White Light Please Stand Up?
Have you ever bought something—say, a shirt—that seemed to be one color in the store but looked totally different once you got it outside? If so, then you, my friend, have been a victim of lousy color rendering: artificial lighting that doesn't accurately represent the "true" color of objects.
In the lighting industry, color rendering is measured as an index from 1—really, almost impossibly, bad—to a perfect 100. Perfection, in this case, is when a light source is functionally equivalent to daylight.
Like sunlight, old-school incandescent lightbulbs are full-spectrum, which means they put out—and can therefore render—every color in the rainbow. Other lights, such as el cheapo fluorescent lights and mercury vapor streetlights, may glow with only three or four colors. With color rendering index scores in the dreary 70s or less, these sources don't show things with their true colors.
WHEN IS YELLOW YELLOWER THAN YELLOW?
Put a white piece of paper over the left side of the disk and stare at the X for 30 seconds.
After 30 seconds, take away the piece of paper but keep staring at the X.
WHAT'S GOING ON?
Wow—the left side looks much yellower than the right side. The difference in perceived saturation comes from a phenomenon called adaptation. After staring at the same color for a while, the color-sensitive cone cells in your eyes stop responding as strongly as they did at first. This reduced response becomes obvious when you compare it to a "fresh" view of the same color.
Actually, there's nothing special about yellow here. It works with red, blue, green, or any other color—even puce.
What It Feels Like To Be A Freelancer
A Startup Offers Freelancers Tips On Not Getting Screwed Over
DOCRACY, AN EFFORT TO EDUCATE CONTRACT WORKERS, SPRANG FROM THE FOUNDERS’ OWN FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE TECH WORLD.
My Thought on Working from Someone's Revit Model
You can hardly be an architectural illustrator, working in the industry today, without having to work with a Revit Architectural model. This is how I feel about the workflow...
In the mid 80's, I started creating architectural renderings for a living. By getting paid for my work, I guess you can say; I was a professional illustrator.
My architectural renderings were invariably done with black pen, on cold press paper. I spent a lot of time working through perspective, light, and shadow. Not until I got everything worked out on paper, with a blue pencil, did I commence drawing.
Preparing a perspective architectural rendering is a science... If anything is off perspective, your rendering will look wrong. It's amazing and has been a personal interest of the mind, how people perceive things. Our minds eye expects to see something, and if that something isn't what it expected to see, red flags are raised. If a person, in your architectural rendering is off scale, it will ruin your viewers experience. So, I can comfortably say, preparing a drawing was 1/2 the work.
Unless an architectural rendering you were working on is a personal project, your time is a premium, and time is money. When I got my first PC, I discovered a shortcut. With my PC, I was able to mass out primitives, work out perspective, and study light and shadow. What took many hours, on paper with pen, would only take minutes with the PC. Now, with the perspective worked out, I could spend more time on the creative part of my architectural renderings.
Fast forward couple decades, to the present time, and I see the same thing happening. Once the PC could handle more than primitives, I started rendering 100% digitally. I put down the pen and paper, picked up the mouse, and everything is now digital. So, instead of spending a lot of time working out perspective on paper, I found myself spending a lot if time trying to model from 2D architectural drawings. To get a good render digitally, you have to build a clean model. The process from 2D wasn't pretty. It served a purpose; I found all the construction errors on the drawing but at my expense. I was commissioned to illustrate, not to do a construct-ability study.
Over the past several years, I have been asked to take over a lot of Revit Architectural models. Although these models are not modeled nearly clean enough for a high quality render, I wasn't stuck with drawings that didn't work. Although I end up remodeling most of the models I get, there is still savings. Everything has been worked out, so I can spend a lot less time modeling through all the issues, and I can spend more time on the creative part, which is why I do what I do.
“Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of a man go together.”
John Ruskin Masquerade
Stephen Wiltshire
Stephen Wiltshire has created several famous panoramas of iconic cities all around the world.
The Stephen Wiltshire Gallery Ltd. is a family run business.
Profits from sales are donated towards childrens' charities, organisations with activities related to art education and The Stephen Wiltshire Trust Fund where Stephen funds his ongoing studies from.
The Stephen Wiltshire Gallery is also involved in various retail and technology based ventures such as Tabtill.com, the ultimate tablet based cash register with optional epos printer and cash draw ideal for retail and hospitality trade,Totallikes.com, a social media trend analytics tool and Expression Jewellery, a Victorian style jewellery range designed by Annette Wiltshire.
“The success of an illustration depends on how intimately it tells a specific story or suits intent, instead of how it was produced.”
Bobby W. Parker Jr.
Architectural Illustrator Lives in a World of Deadlines
It is reasonable to view your finished artwork with an overcritical eye. Only the most complacent craftsmen see no room for improvement.
Nevertheless, an architectural illustrator lives in a world of deadlines and realistic financial returns on his work. Unless he feels the delineation is completely unsatisfactory, he cannot take the time to render it again. Also, another observer is more likely to overlook insignificant flaws than the artist who produced them.
Empire State of Pen
Timelapse video of artist Patrick Vale drawing the view of the Manhattan skyline from the Empire State Building.
Music - Moanin' by Charles Mingus
Proportions
When you have a structure, that isn't characteristic, it's essential to add something that gives your rendering scale. People are one of the advisable things to bring to your composition. Not only do people add liveliness, they contribute scale. Be mindful! You can be slightly off with your scale, and you will through your viewer off.
A acceptable architectural figure is six feet tall, give or take a sensible variance for sex, age, or ethnic differences. The average body is proportioned to a height of eight head lengths. Legs are four head lengths, shoulder width is two lengths, and hip width one and half head lengths.
Children's heads are slightly larger in proportion to their bodies.
From proper proportions, the figure can be laid out as a series of simplified shapes. I apply my people in post-production so; I use boxes in my scene, to symbolize these proportions.